


In Amnion

by garnettrees



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alive Ianto Jones, Canonical Character Death, Children of Earth Fix-It, Comfort, Creepy, Hopeless Romantic But Not A Very Nice One, Hurt/Comfort, Ianto Jones & Toshiko Sato Friendship, Ianto's Suspension, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Mysticism, Occult, Past Lisa Hallett/Ianto Jones, Protective Jack Harkness, Psychic Bond, Psychological Horror, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Resurrection, Reunions, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Soulmates, Telepathy, The 456, Time Agency, Timey-Wimey, background F/F, non-sparkly vampirism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 02:03:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 62,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garnettrees/pseuds/garnettrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nothing in the Universe more dangerous than a Soldier convinced he has nothing left to lose. Every little trick, every saving grace, has its price. Jack/Ianto.</p><p>(Less of a CoE fix-it than a CoE _consequence_. ^^;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badly_knitted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badly_knitted/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Updated Author's Notes 9/25/2017** : I started writing this story in January of 2010, and lost steam sometime in August, when some pretty drastic changes in my life began to gain momentum. When I joined AO3 in 2012, I started to post a few chapters, with the idea that this was one of my few fics I was happy to bring over from the period before "the drought". I quickly got wrapped up in Cherik (which, I assure you, has lost none of its appeal for me), and didn't want to post more of a story I hadn't cleaned up.
> 
> The ever-magnificent [badly_knitted](http://archiveofourown.org/users/badly_knitted) recently encouraged me to take a look at this again and, while I wasn't shocked to do a lot of revisions to bring it up to my current standards, I _was_ surprised to find myself adding things. Next time I go to the Vegas Galaxies, I'm gonna bring **badly_knitted** along to blow on my dice. ^_~ So, I've gone back and cleaned up Chapters 1-4 (technically the Prologue through Chapter Three), and intend to post the next chapter tonight. Most of the changes up until Chapter Eight (which I'm working on now) are minor, cosmetic, or typographical, but there will be new material in the revisions of Version 2011. As for new chapters… maybe I'll get lucky and have enough cooking by the time I catch up with myself. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read my story!

**amnion** \- noun. _the innermost of the embryonic or fetal membranes of reptiles, birds, and mammals; the sac in which the embryo is suspended._

  


* * *

  


Jack Harkness would later tell himself he did not consciously remember choosing to abandon the strictures that once governed his interference in the Timestream. Like so many other breathless, broken moments of his past, he would wall it off with the rush of instinct, as if that could somehow offer a sliver of absolution.  
The truth was, he knew exactly when the decision was made.

 

The UNIT medics had been loading the body onto yet another of their seemingly endless gurneys-- cleaning up the remnants of the Thames House massacre like a hive of expressionless, waxy carrion bugs. Deathwatch beetles, in their dark helmets, breaking the general hum of work as they cut labels and called out numbers. 

_Snick._ "One forty nine!" And then the zip of the body bag, thick and oily.

_Snick._ "One seventy seven!" Zip.

There was an awful, unconscious rhythm to the process, bureaucracy which even the dead could not escape, and Jack took dark pleasure in the ripple of disturbance he caused as he pushed past the technicians. There were looks, whispers, and some openly raised fingers to point; Jack kept his eyes on the hand of the nurse poised to zip up yet another bag. Crossing the room and making no effort to slow his strides for Gwen's sake, Jack grabbed the nurse's heavily gloved wrist, pushing her hand roughly away. Ianto lay still in that sick black cocoon, limbs arranged a little haphazardly within the confines. His tie was askew, waistcoat rumpled, and his sideburns were matted with dried sweat, but he was beautiful. As poised and empty as the marble boy-gods of Rome. Jack brushed a light touch over his lover's forehead, thoughtlessly straightening and smoothing his suit. The woman he'd swept aside was protesting, something about possible lingering contaminants. Jack spared her a single barren glance and she shut up, fluttering her hands uselessly as her eyes silently appealed to Gwen for help.

 

"Jack," Gwen murmured, putting a hand on his shoulder. Close-- too close. Cloying. He gently took Ianto's arms and crossed them over the younger man's chest in that attitude of eternal repose. So many funerals he'd attended over the centuries; priests and mages, acolytes and ministers, faiths and superstitions mingling into one long, disgusting buzz. 

_(An image rose in his brain, a tombstone on a quiet hill. **'She sleeps, and awaits her Lord'.**_  
_Ah. That one had been Estelle's. )_

 

"How long?" Jack asked, consigning Gwen to a dark-toned shadow he saw out of the corner of his eye. 

"I'm sorry?" the nurse asked, grabbing hold of her clipboard. She seemed to find some reassurance in it, for she took a step forward, putting a hand on the gurney handle. Jack raised his arm again to brush her off, but it proved to be unnecessary. "All bodies have to be collected, sir," she protested, though she moved away, arms raised in a gesture of placatory submission. "We're on a tight schedule." Almost as an afterthought, a bit ashamed; "I _am_ sorry for your loss."

 

_(Rote words. **The Kingdom and the power, and the glory. Forever and ever, Amen.** Owen, an empty casket next to Kate in those neat, well trimmed rows. A second death. Once more, this time with feeling. He could imagine Owen's cynical grin, all that bravado to cover the rough-nosed boy: 'If there's any justice, this time it'll stick.')_

 

For a moment, there was no sound at all in Jack's ears; and then, the overwhelming mundanity of human motion. Breathing and footsteps, creaking and squealing of metal, rustling of papers. The murmur of indistinct, legion voices, like the ones that flutter on the edges of a sleepless night. Too much noise.

 

_(The clinking sound of _juzu_ beads. White cloth and black clothing; the red and gold brocade folded over another box of nothing._  
_Why did Toshiko's mother have to have the same, achingly delicate features?)_

 

"I said, 'How long?'" Jack reiterated, preferring to trace the shape of Ianto's lips than look at the medic's twisting expression of polite distress.

"Jack, don't cause a scene," Gwen was trying to pat him soothingly. He endured it, as he would the lash of the Master's electric whip. 

"This man was a Torchwood Operative," the Captain said, tone hard. "All employee remains are to be kept by the Institute, as specified in Section 12 of Her Majesty's original outline."

Gwen made an exasperated noise, "Even if the tombs are unscathed, we won't be able to get down there for a long while!" Instantly, she made her voice softer, warm like burning sugar. "Love, I know this is hard, but you have to let this poor girl do her job. Ianto isn't--"

 

_( **Not dead, only sleeping.** That was a good one-- very Victorian. Jack frowned, brushing an apologetic thumb over the half-healed gash on Ianto's cheek. Who had that been?)_

 

"Contact Doctor Martha Jones at UNIT," he ordered brusquely, aware that he was interrupting what both Gwen and the nurse were trying to say, but unable to bring himself to care. "They have access to the same preservation technologies we used in our morgue." Jack bit his lip, casting his eye about the room. Mostly enlisted men, their sergeants, and interchangeable government types. Pencil-pushers and white-wash men. The General from UNIT was over in the corner, wearily signing clipboards and talking heatedly into his cellphone. "Never mind, I'll take care of it." He shrugged Gwen's touch away and picked up Ianto's still left hand. 

(It had been Alice Guppy. _Not dead, only sleeping;_ complete with a little marble angel, head bowed in prayer. No body of course, but the coffin had been piled high with white roses. Quite the burial for a woman with no living relations, but Emily Holroyd had seen to the whole thing. Jack remembered his inelegant snort of disbelief, watching his erstwhile nemesis cross herself before the formal grave. She'd shot him for that, of course. Later.)

 

Ianto did not look like he was sleeping. He didn't look like he was at peace, didn't look like anything other than dead. An empty shell. 

'There's your power and glory,' Jack thought, choking. His throat was raw-- any moment, he would begin screaming, or else laugh hysterically. He thought of Ianto, forever consigned to that lightless pool-- the thick, inky _nothing_ that drowned him every time Jack himself died. No signing choirs, no _Sheol_ , or Summer Lands of Paradise. Just that darkness too black to be real, the searing cold of something so utterly oposed to life. That, and those things that lumbered beneath, hideous and obscured. 

_(Further back, all the way back now. Boeshane._  
_**May his spirit never wander, and always find home.**_  
_The hot sand; the endless, bone-crushing depth of the ocean. Papa, smoothing back his hair, talking about the red cord that bound the body to the soul. Mother and Ahmah, from the In-Worlds, laughing at his superstition, while Pa just shrugged regally. That expressive, strong shoulder roll Jack had worked so long to emulate._  
_'What is magic, but science you don't understand?')_

He held that slim, capable hand in his own, marveling over the elegant fingers, the ink stain that remained, faint, on Ianto's wrist from two mornings prior. He kissed the knuckles, each one, with delicate attention.

_You're not sleeping. Are you wandering, Ianto? I wasn't watching you, I'm sorry-- I let some damn fool cut the cord. I can't stand thinking of you down there, Ianto, stuck in all that nothing. I won't tolerate it. Just stand still, love. Don't get lost._

Now a single kiss to Ianto's palm, before he carefully settled it back against the archivist's chest. He took a deep breath, one last look at that still face, and closed up the body bag before the nurse could move to do it for him. 

_Can you be good for me, Ianto-- my good boy? It'll be just like hide and seek. Don't go wandering, and I'll find you._

 

"I'll take care of this," Jack smiled, full of charm but laced with frost, as he took the nurse's clipboard and forms away. He turned and stalked towards the UNIT General; the click of Gwen's shoes as she followed sounded like a dozen Deathwatch beetles, chasing at his heels. 

"-- We can still hold a funeral, of course," she said, after a moment. There was bewilderment in her tone, as if she was picking up the thread of a conversation he'd dropped. "For his family's sake. And yours." She reached for the clipboard, which he deftly held out of reach. Something flickered across her pinched and pretty features. "You know I'm here for you, Jack."

"I know." He lifted his free hand, put it briefly against her cheek. She was alive and warm and, though he could barely admit it to himself, the vivacity brought a slow burn of anger to coil up his spine. Here was Gwen; healthy, mostly unscathed, getting ready to bring a new child into the world. Gwen, who'd ducked out from under Rhys' embrace to tread unwanted on Jack's shadow. He tucked the forms safely under his arm, patted Gwen's shoulder. He made his mouth smile, and it must have seemed more genuine, because her eyes softened. After a moment, she stepped back.  
She said, "Good then." As if she had won some argument, convinced him of something. Perhaps she was even foolish enough to believe it was so.

 

"Thank you," he mouthed, rote, and turned back towards the General. Later, he would tell himself he hadn't made the decision yet, not then, but he was already making a mental list of debts and favors owed to him. The UNIT general was tired, probably newly promoted to deal with the mess his superiors had been swept up under. Experienced, but young as men of such caliber went; as he got closer, Jack could see a faint line of sweat along the other man's firmly pressed uniform collar. He gripped the officer's hand, shook, and the smile on his face was the smile of a con-man who'd once known exactly how to slip out before Volcano Day. He put a pen in the General's hand.

_It's okay, Ianto._

_Ready or not, here I come._

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Future chapters may contain some blood, gore, and disturbing concepts. This fic owes a lot of its inspiration to the short Chinese film Dumplings. The film itself is a masterpiece of pacing horror and breathless understanding. There are hardly words to express its horrific genius, and I highly reccommend it-- but only if you have a strong stomach. I promise not be too gross-, if only because I'm possessed of a delicate constitution myself. ^_^''


	2. Chapter One

Hua She Street Number 7 had a rot spreading through it; an infection that had settled into the concrete and steel girders, moving along electrical wires with the pace of an all-consuming, fatal disease. The street itself was freshly paved, to facilitate the traffic that came from the warehouse district-- but a step off that shiny blacktop was like a step in some superstitious, childhood rhyme. Jack himself walked purposefully along the broken sidewalk, smothered by the pregnant, humid air. Typhoon season lay heavily the autonomous Chinese port city of Macao, even on a day that spilled sunlight down through the tall, bland apartment buildings. The neglect was obvious in the peeling paint and littered corners, and a part of Jack catalogued everything with a weary soldier's instinct. The air itself smelled of malaise-- rust and home-cooked meals; spray paint, chemicals, and noodle soup. He had paid the cab driver at the intersection, observing the young man's obvious surprise.

"Here?" the driver had asked in barely-accented English. A very young man, Jack had mentally revised, seeing the ear-buds laying like limp tendrils around cabbie's neck, wire disappearing under his neon t-shirt. "Are you sure, man?"

"I'm sure," Jack felt that smile on his own face, charming and thoughtless. It seemed a separate thing, an anachronism pulled from his pocket, but it worked. With one roll of slim, untried shoulders, the driver had dismissed any curiosity about the American and his business on Hua She Street. So much the better.

 

The sounds of the city chased to the edges of this out-of-the-way district; the rhymn of traffic, spending, and work. How quickly the world went back to its old ways, as if it had simply missed one step in a long and complicated dance. That missing beat-- the 456-- became buried as human beings stubbornly insisted on their small, mundane routines.

 

The building he was looking for was easy to find, though hardly distinguishable from the others. They were all relics of 60's housing projects, cement apartment cubicles stacked atop one another. Their stupid, merciless geometry matched that of the district itself, which meandered into odd angles and dark alleys, barely conforming to any orderly city grid. Jack gazed up at the complex for a moment; absently making note of the laundry-laced balconies, the tiny heat-wilted plants. He pushed the gate aside, ignoring the looks of surprise as he walked into the courtyard. It was miserably hot outside, but the tenants clustered together on boxes or in lawn chairs, looking for at least the hope of moving air. Jack himself still wore the RAF coat Ianto had pilfered for him-- he felt sick and dizzy, but that had nothing to do with the heat. He kept an even pace past the old, shirtless men who had stopped playing Mahjong, he nodded to the old ladies with their paper fans and deep, knowing chuckles. There were a few children playing ball at the far end of the open space, and they were the only ones who paid Jack no heed as he walked towards the open lift. His stomach rolled, and the coat felt heavy on his shoulders.

_He wouldn't want you to do this_ , Jack told himself, clenching a fist. There was a shiver in him that could not be expressed physically, he felt the ache and drain of those left to die on the battlefield. Except-- and here he did smile, real and horrible-- he was the one who usually ordered the retreat. His smile unnerved the old man who entered the lift with him, but those milky, aged eyes narrowed in understanding. A bent finger pressed the fourth button before Jack could even make a move. The immortal examined his own mind for a moment, a habit he'd falling into with disturbing ease in the four days since Thames House. Right now, he was looking for any sense of chagrin or embarrassment at the old man's regard. He had to search for his own feelings, grope for understanding in a space now divorced from himself. It was like functioning under a steady rain of anesthesia. Not so bad, really-- he was more concerned about waking to the day the numbness had faded. 

_Ah, but you're gonna fix this, aren't you?_ It was the voice of John Hart, but the thoughts were his own, sneering at how confident he'd once been. _The great and mighty Captain._

 

Fourth floor, apartment 45.   
The door itself was plain, covered by a protective iron lattice. The four and five were simple black and white stickers on faded beige paint. 

_(Four. Five._   
_Four, five, six_.  
_Pick up sticks! That was an old rhyme, one his Alice-- when she _was_ Alice-- had once sung.)_

Jack took another breath full of hot, sticky air, and he seemed to find a little balance. He stood in front of the door, looking at the buzzer for a moment. Outside, he could hear the children playing in the courtyard, the bounce of the ball on the concrete. A few short days ago, those children had been speaking an alien message in horrifying, synchronized English. Now they ran and wrestled, laughed as if nothing had ever happened. 

_There are certain things you just can't un-happen,_ the Doctor of his memory lectured, all big ears and bright eyes. _Some threads cannot be pulled without destroying the whole design._

"Design be damned," Jack muttered. He pushed the buzzer.

 

As the door opened, Jack schooled his face into a look of careful disinterest. The woman behind it was exactly as he remembered her, right down to the look of anger and distrust that leapt to her face.  
_"Hwai dan!"_ she said shrilly, candy pink lips turning down. "Who has left this disgusting thing by my door?"

"Hello, Lan Wei," Jack said politely. 

"Captain Harkness," she returned, using the same tone for his name as she had for the curse. Even in her blue platform heels, she was much shorter than Jack, but Wei scowled at him as if they were nose to nose. Jack looked back mildly, seeing that pale, moon-round face, the dark eyes. It was all the same. For a moment, he understood what the Doctor had meant with that hurtful whisper of ' _wrong_ '. Wei was wearing her long, inky hair in childish twin buns; a blue and yellow sundress clung to her lithe form, along with an abundance of plastic jewelry, but she was just the same as when he'd last seen her in 1919. Only the costume had changed-- no longer the fine embroidered silks of a rich man's concubine, but the perky, clashing colors of a modern 21st century girl. She appeared no older than her late twenties, not a wrinkle or blemish in sight.   
And she _smelled_. That sickening, too-sweet flower scent that had first served to inform Jack of her true nature almost a century ago. 

 

They stood staring at each other through the iron screen for a long moment, until a soft voice called to Wei from within the dim apartment. 

" _Mei wen ti_ ," she called back in soft, soothing tones. Crossing her arms over her small chest, she turned back to Jack. "I have customer now," she informed in deliberate, accented English. "Why are you here?" She stood on tiptoes, peering between the mesh as if trying to look behind Jack. "You bring men now, guns? For what?"

"I have nothing," Jack said quietly. The unvarnished, almost bland emptiness of that statement must have registered with Wei, for she looked him over again. Her scrutiny was much more detailed this time; an almost insectile look of appraisal came over her expression. Suddenly, Wei clapped in delight.

"You need something," she poked a finger at him.

No use denying it. "Yes."

"You grieve," she added, licking delicately at the air. 

"Yes." Jack bit the inside of his cheek and nodded. Somewhere, far off in another person's body, there were blunt knives pressing against defenseless flesh. He was aware of the sensation, but he didn't feel it. 

"Now you understand-- maybe little-- what you do to me, long ago." Wei's pleasure at his circumstances was quickly dissipating the wake of her old grudge. Jack took a step closer to the screen, though the scent of flowers and decay was overwhelming. 

"Please," he said.

"You not say 'please'!" Wei exclaimed, eyes wide in surprise. "You not 'please' sort of person. What you really want?" There was another soft call from inside the apartment, and Jack nodded towards it.

"Your customer," he reminded her. And then, because it had knocked her off guard before, he added, "Please. I need a favor."

Wei swore long and faithfully in an old village dialect, but she opened the screen. "Come in."

 

The hallway was short, narrow, and undeserving of the name. Jack ignored the flicker of his own reflection as he passed the faux gilded mirror and came into the main room. The dim lighting was deliberate-- Wei had drawn all the curtains, so that the only illumination came from the narrow kitchen doorway, and a little rose crystal lamp by the sofa. The living space itself was small; barely enough room for the couch, a small side table, and a cot that had been set up almost as a centerpiece. He was not surprised to see a naked woman laying face down on the cot's folded duvet, though she was certainly surprised to see him. Her soft, choked gasp filled the motionless air, making the room seem suddenly more cramped. Wei bustled quickly to her customer's side, laying soothing hands on the older woman's back. 

" _Mei wen ti,_ " she said cheerfully, continuing in Chinese. " _Please don't worry. This man is another customer. He's stupid. He doesn't understand us._ " Shooting Jack a narrow look, she said in loud, careful English, "Please sit down on the couch." Jack nodded, moving to take a seat on the end furthest away. Wei was quick to admonish him to take off his coat. "Hot. Too hot!" She waved a hand. "No coat."

And her eyes followed every movement as Jack carefully folded it in his lap, his fingers stroking along the wool and Ianto's thoughtful gesture. That brave smile in the warehouse, proud and trusting. He worked hard not to fist his hand in the material, because he knew she was watching. Instead, he looked at the woman on the cot-- brief glances, easily sizing her up. Breathing slowly, she lay with her head pillowed on her arms, facing shyly away from the unexpected guest. She was in her late forties-- still beautiful, from what Jack had seen, but it was a beauty that took work. On the opposite end of the sofa, he could see her designer shoes, handbag and ladies suit carefully laid out, all in a matching almost-topaz orange that was so fashionable right now. She was, in short, exactly the sort of client Lan Wei catered to. He wondered briefly how Wei told her apart from all the rest.

" _You see, Mrs. Yang?_ " Wei said, as if responding to Jack's thoughts. " _He is only a foreigner-- I'm sorry he bothered us, but I had no idea he was coming. Just shows up, asking for things._ "

" _Just like a man,_ " Mrs. Yang murmured as Wei massaged her shoulders. 

 

Laughing, Wei reached for the bowl on the side table, dipping her hands in the contents. Jack could smell the lavender she had added to the topical potion, but even that could not fully conceal the coppery scent. Wei rubbed the syrupy red liquid between her hands and began working it into the skin of Mrs. Yang's back. From the brown, drying stains on the duvet, Jack could only assume she'd already done the front. So many horrors had passed before his eyes. He looked at the bowl, at Wei's hands; he knew and understood and was not surprised. In the 51st Century, he'd lost his best friend to foes so terrible their name could not be spoken. As a Time Agent, he'd committed murder, theft and torture at his superiors' command. He'd barely even begun to admit to Ianto the depth and scope of his deeds during his time with Torchwood. No matter how much he trusted the young man, in the end, there were simply too many horrible stories to tell. He'd done terrible things-- deliberately, by accident, sometimes even with the best of intentions. After having seen much more horrific crimes

_(Stephen's smooth and bloody and **trusting** face) _

Jack still recognized the evil in this cheap apartment. It was the evil of convenience, of vanity and pride.

 

Jack glanced around the room-- saw the peeling green paint and the shelves cluttered with chipped porcelain figures. The wooden floor had watermarks; every surface smelled of Wei and her funeral pyre flowers. 

_What am I doing here?_ He asked himself. The coat was in his lap, but he was still too hot. Wei and Mrs. Yang were talking, but he couldn't force his brain to translate. Dizziness assaulted him, nausea grabbed him from behind. He wanted to put the coat back on, and couldn't remember why. 

 

_(Ianto, down there, in the void so dark it is not darkness. Ianto's strong, elegant hands, holding his coat. That smile when he went to help the Doctor save the stolen Earth. Laughter floating in the stillness of the hub, and Ianto counted and they played hide and seek.)_

 

_I don't want to wake up from dying and always be waiting for his touch,_ Jack realized. It was the first true grieving thought he'd had since Thames House-- everything else had been rage, denial, or planning. His purpose solidified within him; a possessive rush of longing and affection. _The last thing I said to him was 'don't'. I'm going to make that un-happen._

 

The nausea slid off his skin, and Jack made himself translate the low, confiding tones of Wei and her client.

_"I never charge them, because I am doing them a favor, and they are doing one for me."_ Wei was saying, making a proud gesture with her hand towards the rows of ceramic statues. More than one of them depicted Kwan Yin, the Chinese goddess of Mercy. _"But they often bring me gifts. It would be rude to turn them down."_

" _Oh, yes,_ " Mrs. Yang agreed, making a show of admiring Wei's collection even as the other woman began massaging the potion into her calves.

" _The other day,_ " Wei added in an intimate, conspiring tone, " _I saw a young girl who was twelve._ "  
" _How shocking!_ "

" _Yes, it was. But it makes for a much more potent formula._ " Wei dipped her hands back in the bowl, taking care not to drip on her flowered sundress. Her bracelets jingled and clicked as she moved her hands. " _Young birth and young death adds a lot to the mix. I saved it for you._ " She was speaking to Mrs. Yang, but her words were for Jack. She tilted her chin at him, daring him to say something.

 

" _I'm so appreciative,_ " Mrs. Yang oozed. " _Your recommendation was so truthful! I already see a difference in my skin._ "

_"Indeed, the flesh on your neck is much more firm. You were very concerned about that."_  
Mrs. Yang flicked a shy glance at Jack, but was apparently completely convinced he only spoke English. She giggled as she confided, " _My breasts and buttocks, too! When we went to the gym, my friends all thought I had been secretly exercising behind their backs!_ " The women giggled together, but Jack held Wei's long gaze. When he was sure she was looking, he purposefully turned his own eyes towards a particular picture frame, sitting in a place of honor amongst his host's many gifts. Wei's smile vanished.

 

Oblivious, Mrs. Yang continued, soft and searching, " _I do, however, worry about my face. It is not working so quickly there._ "

" _You must not concern yourself!_ " Wei declared, voice cheerful and face grim. " _This is why you must eat the food I have prepared for you. I am sending it home with you in a cooler-- dumplings and noodle soup, all cooked in my special recipe. You must eat it all, never mind what it's made out of. You see, you can not just bring your beauty back from the outside-- you must work from the inside, too. When you were a young girl, did your spirit not course so much more readily in your body? It will be that way again, as the youthful energy soaks into you. You are still that beautiful girl, but your husband can not see it. Men are blind, they are fools, always groping for younger flesh. He does not respect all you have done for him as his faithful wife. But we will make him see that again!_ "

 

Again, Jack forced his own tongue still. Caught up in the passion and fever of Wei's little speech, Mrs. Yang gave an enraptured sigh and swore to follow every one of girl's instructions. It might have been strange to see the older woman looking at Wei's tender face with the expression of a child grateful for her elder sister's words of wisdom, but Jack knew the truth. There were words for Lan Wei-- precise ones in long-forgotten tongues, useless ones that had been tainted by modern glitz and gore. Named or not, she was what she was, a monster with dimples and a delicate laugh. She was by no means immortal-- one day she would fall and rise no more, just as the rest of the human race. Even her longevity and the resilience of her youth were remarkable only for the time period in which she lived. It was her methodology that set her apart, twisting an odd anecdote into something infectious and sinister. Its consequences broke the three-fold rule of magic, leaving her untouched in the eye of the storm. And yet she existed here, in this tiny apartment, exchanging external decay for a far more permanent,internal stain. 

 

As Wei began one final rub down, Jack instead turned to regard the picture situated on the shelf. There was one quick, shallow prick of deja vu at the back of his neck; he thought of seeing his own picture on Estelle's mantel, and all the questions that had so readily leapt to Gwen's mouth. The picture on Wei's shelf was very similar in its quiet, unobtrusive statement of the obvious. The sepia photograph was old-- there were creases around the edges that spoke of many frames, many places of honor to look down from. Two women sat together in a garden, dressed in elegant, traditionally embroidered _qipao_ , gracious and poised. The one on the right was very obviously Lan Wei-- her hair was swept up in jeweled combs and her smile absent, but it was the very same face. The girl on the left no longer existed. She had died in 1919; Jack himself had watched her fatal convulsions, and he remembered her name. Ahn Mei Huang was smiling, just slightly, in the picture-- there were jade beads roped about her neck, and Wei had her hand coiled in them possessively. Jack could imagine her blushing, embarrassed giggle. Wei's other hand was hidden, but Jack imagined it was resting against the small of Ahn Mei's back, just as he had so often placed his hand protectively at the base of Ianto's spine. The Captain smiled inwardly-- the portrait was professional, paid for by a rich Cantonese businessman. It seemed unfathomable that Mr. Huang could look at that photo and not know what lay between his fourth and fifth wives. 

 

"Stop!" Wei said loudly, her voice a hook to the present. Jack turned to see her face flushed with anger. "You not have the right." Mrs. Yang was sitting up on the cot, clutching a sheet for modesty and looking at Wei with questions on her face. It occurred to Jack that she was truly the one at a disadvantage, but he was glad he had not thought of it earlier. He had no desire to speak to Wei in front of an audience, whether they were able to understand or not. "Go out on the balcony." Wei made shooing motions with her hands, bracelets clicking, "Mrs. Yang now wipe off and get dressed."

 

Jack complied, eager for a break from the stuffy apartment, and a chance to reinforce his strategy. He folded his coat over his arm and closed the sliding glass door behind him, taking a moment to appreciate the fresh air. The tall apartment buildings clustered all around, looking at him with thousands of dumb glass eyes, but there was slight view of the sea flanked by two of the larger towers. Jack fixed his gaze on that-- the blue of the ocean was bright and tropical, reminding him of nothing. He gazed at its blank merger of horizons, sky and sea. Not at all like Cardiff Bay, deep gray-blue, somehow moving in its stillness. That kind of blue was...

_(Jack had liked to playfully wax poet about Ianto's eyes, even if it was the short-cut to a cranky Welshman. Ianto had no patience for such teasing-- he'd smack Jack and tell him not quit his day job. Sometimes, Jack left it at that, punctuating with what Ianto called his 'cheeky pornographic grin', coaxing genuine laughter from the younger man. But, if he persevered, if he dipped his voice low and smokey and sincere, the results were even more spectacular. Ianto would blush and squirm, he'd try to work up anger through his natural embarrassment and, in that confusing tumult, there were flashes of just how young and earnest the archivist was. That little curl he'd make into himself, even as Jack pulled him close and kissed him into pliancy, had all the savor of the rarest wine.)_

Jack felt a stab of pain, somewhere back behind his ribs. It had its twin in the memory of desire, of the honest affection Ianto could knife through him, effortless, as if he hadn't meant to at all. Push, pull. 

_("I hate the word 'couple'.")_

Pull, push. The sound of the tide; like breathing.

 

Fisting his hand around the tiny balcony's railing, Jack cleared his mind with that unfamiliar, pacific blue. He summoned Rose's champagne con-man from the past, thinking through contingencies, blueprints in his mind. Reaching in his coat pocket, he flipped open the cellphone and was rewarded with the blinking icon for a text message. He'd ditched his old mobile when he left Britain, and the untraceable disposable he'd purchased had a number he'd given only to a select few. The message itself contained three words:

**Received. No damage.**

 

His smile was brittle, but the satisfaction was real. So many people from his long life owed him favors. He supposed some of them thought they were getting off easy with the simple smuggling transport of a... body. But he would consider the reward reaped in tenfold now. Ianto was secure in preservation casket; the box itself was now safely through the border inspection of Macao. 

The balcony door slid open; Jack stepped past a blank-faced Wei to find no trace of the cot or Mrs. Yang. The older woman had taken her 'special recipe' and gone. Now, Wei stood in front of him, holding the framed portrait in her hand. She looked deceptively untried in her twin buns and clunky heels. In her other hand, nails painted neon blue and yellow, she clutched a butcher knife. Jack raised an eyebrow, more than ready to call her bluff. Little girl with old, hate-filled eyes.

"I wish I kill you," she said, very honestly. "I wish I kill you for good."

"You can't." Also the plain truth.

Wei tossed the knife on the sofa, holding the photograph with both hands. Her thumb caressed the glass over Ahn Mei's face, shoulders slumping a little. "What you *want*?"

He thought of Ianto, in the darkness. Breathing quietly, laying carefully still. There were things you couldn't put a name to, words that could not be uttered. Instead, they stuck in your throat, made it hard to breathe-- you could only stammer 'don't', and what good did that do anyone? Leading back to the darkness, which swallowed confessions and intent.

 

Jack told her, very simply, "I only want what's mine."

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHINESE GLOSSARY:  
>  _Hwai dan_ \- Bad egg / rotten egg. An insult.  
>  _Mei Wen Ti_ \- Don't worry / it's not a problem.  
>  _Qipao_ \- Traditional Chinese robes for women. Not the form-fitting _Cheongsam_ of today, but a more ornate, loose fitting embroidered dress worn by the upperclass in the early 1900's.


	3. Chapter Two

"I only want what's mine." 

The truth was as simple as it was sharp. Jack thought of all the aphorisms, the useless sayings about its power. Honesty is the best policy; if I'm lying, then may G-d strike me down. He should be so lucky.

 

_("Tell the truth and shame the devil." Emily Holroyd again-- all baby doll eyes and expensive calfskin gloves. She'd been fond of that one, especially during water torture.)_

 

The calculating look on Wei's face made the flavor of the memory stronger. She regarded him with narrow snake's eyes and he moved not at all, standing almost at parade rest, with the coat

_(Ianto's coat)_

draped over his arm. At last, she tossed her head and made a guttural noise, busying herself with returning Ahn Mei's picture to its place of honor. 

"You said you have nothing," Lan Wei spoke calmly, switching completely to Chinese. The cadences of her dialect were strong, "If this is true, then I am glad. You have nothing, I have nothing-- finally, after so long, we are even." She had to stretch to place the frame back on the shelf, but Jack made no move to assist her. Rocking back on her heels, Wei looked at him over one pale and perfect shoulder. It was an expression at once infused with the bravado of an adolescent and the disgust of an elegant woman gazing on someone she considered far below her rank. "Why should I help you?" 

"I have something of value to you," Jack replied, slipping with no small relief into the rhythm of barter and negotiation. His own Chinese was as clear and solid as textbook printing, and just as lacking in character.

Candy pink lips sneered at him, "You think to _buy_ me?" She swept towards the kitchen, putting unnecessary strength into her steps to make her heels echo loudly.

"No," Jack said, following her to where a curtain of red beads swayed lazily in the kitchen threshold. He spoke to her through them, as they had conversed through the wire screen. "I simply have something you want." Wei gave him another haughty, operatic look of disbelief. He waited, while the beads tinkled and the building's old plumbing creaked in protest of its lot. Finally, she made a limp-wristed motion with her hand that could have been dismissal or permission. Jack read her easily.

 

Beyond the tacky, beaded curtain, the kitchen itself was as tiny and cramped as the rest of the apartment, walls yellow like the breast of a jealous canary. Wei moved confidently along the dated formica countertops, opening cracked cupboards and flipping on the gas stove. Of all the odors, the worst lay in here-- coppery crimson, hospital metallic; flowers and larvae gone to rot; that stink of sweat and despair and honey left out in the sun. 

"What can you offer me?" Wei asked, seemingly focused on her work. She found a clean pot, filling it less than an inch of water from the tap. "You smell like death." Rummaging in the old monolith of a refrigerator, she came up with several bags of red fluid, all of them marked with medical pictographs. 

_Warning. Caution. **Blood Type A Positive.**_

 

Jack turned away-- he could tell by the quality of her silence that Wei thought it was distaste or disapproval. Pressing his hand to his mouth, Jack bit into the flesh of his palm. _Let her imagine that,_ he thought with barely reigned hysteria, _it will serve me better._ There was laughter in him, wild and inappropriate, blasphemous and filled with hatred for a clockwork Universe that dared to claim it had a G-d. _She says I smell bad, Ianto,_ Jack murmured internally. The muscles of his stomach spasmed to contain the chuckles; with his free hand, the Captain clutched his folded coat like a drowning man. He'd had many moments of sick irony, but none quite like this. The worst part was, even with all her infected-blossom stink, Lan Wei was _right._

 

Finally, finally, Jack was able turn back to his hostess and take a deep breath. She'd busied herself with pouring her pilfered goods into the pot-- stirring for the right consistency, adjusting the heat-- but she was shooting him quick glances from the corner of her eye.

"I know a nurse in East Central Hospital," Wei remarked, as if an artisan regarding the raw materials of her trade. "I have to pay her a lot, but it's good to have this. Sometimes, no one comes to see 'Auntie Wei' for a while-- not for that sort of help."

Jack folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the refrigerator. She thought she had the upper hand-- poking at him with her hot needle words, looking for a reaction. "The girls you help 'repair' their virtue."

"These men," Wei waved that dismissive hand, "they are animals. 'Trust me, baby,' they say. 'I love you, baby.'" She was using the English word-- it came out ' _beh-bee_ ', with a leering emphasis. "Old men, young men, all the same. Sleep-drugs in drinks, promises of marriage-- rings, fluffy white western gowns. In old China, white is the color of death!" Wei shook a blue lacquered finger in his direction, "And then, what do you think happens? A girl in trouble has only Auntie Wei to turn to for help."

"There are also women like Mrs Yang, though," Jack pointed out, his face the smooth mask of a man discussing business. His smile flickered with practiced ease, "You're a regular fountain of youth."

"Women like Mrs Yang pay with money, not trinkets and favors," Wei replied. She switched to briefly to English, laughing at her own joke. "I no work on credit!" 

Jack flashed that cocky-bastard grin again, "Well, I have a trade." 

"You have nothing I want." The contents of the pot were simmering-- Wei washed her hands quickly and moved to the small wooden table. She spread flour like fine snow, snatching up some dough from a nearby bowl. 

"Are you so sure?" Jack parried back carefully, clenching his back teeth. The clock was old and made ridiculously loud, plastic ticks. 

 

 

"I have also seen other customers recently," Wei said, seemingly changing the subject. Those tiny, nimble fingers, pinched and kneaded the dough. She rolled it into a long rope, let it hit the table top with a little cloud-puff of flour. Almost coyly, she said, "My other customers have been children."

There was no surprise in Jack-- only dull understanding. "Of course."

"You brought those demons here," Wei said. There it was, that punch in the dark. Jack thought of Clem, shivering in terror, calling him a bad man. Shouting that he was just the same as ever, even as Ianto and Gwen assured the old man-child that they were the good guys. 

_That's a laugh, Jack-my-boy,_ the Captain's internal voice once more picked up the flavor of John Hart. _But then, you always loved to play the Knight in Shinning Armor. Big Damn Hero, yeah? What a lark._

"The aliens," Jack corrected Wei presently. "They were aliens. We called them the 4-5-6."

"And we called them demons!" Wei's tone was sharp. She began slicing her dough-rope into small segments, the click of her knife as harsh and unrelenting as the repetitive, sun-faded clock.  
Click, tick. Click, tick. 

_(Snick! The cutting of the medical tags in that degrading gymnasium. The zip of the body bag, hiding Ianto's pale face away.)_

"So many frightened mothers and fathers," Wei continued, with the dainty air of a lady gossiping over mahjong. "They came to me-- 'Help us, Auntie Wei', they said to me. I consulted my star charts for all the years; there were many children from the Year of the Rabbit, the Dragon, the Snake and Horse. I drew protective charms with gold ink, and I checked the lines on their palms."

 

Jack nodded, saying nothing. He could see it all too clearly-- so many children in this stuffy apartment, mothers and fathers frantically grasping small hands and shoulders as the world and business ground to a panicked, five day halt. And in the center of it all, 'Auntie' Wei, perhaps dressed up for the occasion in one of her fine silk cheongsams. In his minds eye, she flitted amongst them, pressing her own childlike hand over small chests, feeling heartbeats and pulses, tracing the line of the spine. _Ah, Mr Tsao, what a strong daughter! A good spine-- she is centered firmly on the ground. Year of the Horse; she will run too fast for the demons to catch her mane._ Wei would have looked each child over, searching for blemishes, for moles in places that predestined them for bad luck. _A good strong son, Mrs Yi-- you are very lucky. Ah Ms. Wu, you must guard this little one. Do you feel his little pounding rabbit heart?_ All the while, the parents gazing on with anxious, ridiculously grateful eyes; accepting prayers and charms to misdirect the gods, fearfully clasping Wei's white hands. 

 

_(He thought of his own parents, striking out to build from nothing on a faraway, lonely star. His father, hiding a prayer in the name Jack had not used in over a thousand years. Not just a name, but a play on words-- written in a language that did not yet exist, a different emphasis could turn the sound of his name into the words for 'Strength' and 'Endurance'. Mother, reminding him of that duality when his brother was born._

_"You are my strong boy," she'd murmured, kissing his hair and whispering his name. "You will look out for Grey." Implying-- consciously or not-- some quality of fragility in her second, darker son._

_And Ahmah, always the fulcrum between Mother and Father, holding balance with all the strange gravity of a rogue moon. He remembered raising his tiny arms up, willing her to embrace him. If he wanted fears put to ease, Mother was there with her blue-eyed logic; Ahmah was soft edged, and loved to coddle._

_"Beautiful boy," she'd say, rubbing their noses together. She'd squish him to her pale, ample breasts, laughing. "So handsome. You are going to break some hearts."_

_He'd laughed with her, so long ago in the future- watching the sun catch on her dark hair and latticed earrings. Laughed and been so pleased with himself._

_Now those words came back to him, as if she'd run a finger down the lines of his destiny and uttered a curse.)_

 

"I'm sure they were very... honored to have your help." Jack said, forcing himself into the present, canary-yellow kitchen. That was the power of memory, of symbol-- it made the past immediate. 

"Oh, I was so busy." Wei smiled to herself. She was flattening the segments of dough now, making tiny pouches for ancient, superstitious herbs. "Doctors and science and all your Western gods, what good are they? If they knew something, would they tell?" Tilting her chin up, the ancient young woman licked her lips. "When people are afraid, they always go back to the past."

"We stopped them," Jack said, not for Wei's benefit, or even for his own. It was an affirmation; he heard the echo of that death-buzz voice in his head, mocking him and his promise to fight. And he had, he had fought and won the battle, had lost everything. Don't, don't, don't.

"There was a price," Wei said, like foreign, fumbling fingers in the dark. She was feeling her way. "Paid in blood, yes?"

Stephen. Oh, G-d. His stomach rolled-- he was going to vomit up that shriveled thing Rose had insisted was his soul. So young, his brave little soldier, and bleeding... bleeding from places no one ever should. Red in Stephen's sun-blond hair; red in a sea around Ianto; red over his own face as he woke for the first time to the fresh suffocation of this new and ultimate loss. There was too much red! The color was strangling him and he was going to be violently ill. 

"Yes." Jack said, slamming his hands down on the rickety wooden table. More little clouds of flour, and Wei looked at him solemnly.

Quietly, "Blood is the oldest form of currency."

"Yes, yes, g-ddamn you!" There was flour every where-- he was shacking his firsts in the air, trying to pull out his own hair. "You merciless, life sucking bitch-- do you hear me? I said yes! Every bit of it was paid in blood!" He bit his lip and thought about snapping her slim, white neck.

 

( _Except, it's never going end, is it, Ianto? I'll keep coming back, taking that first breath and waiting for you to scold me for being so careless. I asked you to stay, I begged you-- it was the closest I could get to saying those three little words. Why am I all alone, here? Why is the world rushing on, trying to make up for lost time? Buy, sell, eat, drink, fight, fuck, laugh and smoke and piss and moan._  
_Wake up and do it all over again._ )  


 

Wei shrank back for a moment, elbows against the sink. Her eyes were wide as she took in Jack's contained rage, and her skin was as bloodless as the accidental smudge of flour on her cheek. She saw the darkness in him, yawning and as infinite as his life-span, and she was afraid.

_(Ianto, just a little drunk, stroking along Jack's back. Laughing, always turning that edge of sarcasm back on himself. "My darkness is darker than your darkness." So much self-reproach, for one so young. Later, kissing Jack, the words more felt against the lips than heard. "You are not a monster.")_

Hatred and self-preservation waged a war across Lan Wei's expression. Finally, she put out a cautious hand.

"And everything goes on." Nearly silent words, trying to calmly define the present. "The Doctors are the busy ones now-- all children must have health certificates to return to school. And you saw the boys, playing downstairs? Some schools have started again, but not so many. China and Japan, America and Europe, they are so angry at Great Britain. Calling for conferences, using big important words. But the noodle shops are open, and the convenience stores. The trains run on time."

Jack snorted. "Pizza gets delivered." He raked a hand through his hair, knowing there were streaks of flour in his unusually artfully disarrayed look. _See, Alice? Finally there's some white._ He took a deep, centered breath-- there was no desire in him to finally lose that last, precarious grip on sanity in the middle of Lan Wei's kitchen.

 

Sensing the worst part was over, Wei herself turned back to her cooking, plopping each little dough-pouch into what she had simmering on the stove. When she turned back around, Jack held two memory sticks dangling between his fingers. 

"I have something you want," he repeated, feeling as if minutes and hours slowed ice-molasses still despite that wretched clock. "This one," he tapped the silver flash drive with his free hand, "contains every file Torchwood ever had on you."

"Copies?"

"No. Most of our equipment was destroyed. When UNIT came to retrieve what data was salvageable, I removed these from the restoration drives. This is it." Jack watched the surprise in those dark eyes, driving on. "And I do mean everything-- the Tunguska Artifact, Mr. Huang's murder, any mention of Ahn Mei. Even the deal you struck with Mrs Holroyd." Wei's eyebrows flew up, a true crack in that china-doll face. "Emily loved to play mad-scientist, you know," Jack grinned unpleasantly, warming to his subject. "So I couldn't figure out why she let you go-- I thought you'd end up on the dissection table. And yet, she seemed to get back a lot of her stamina, after Canton. She was cut down in the field-- death by Torchwood."

"A trade," Wei said, rolling her shoulders. "You will never understand what a woman's fears are."

"You were sending her your 'special recipe', weren't you?"

She made no effort to deny it. "It's only a small fix. For people like Mrs Yang and Mrs Holroyd, it makes the skin clearer, keeps color in the hair, makes the outside fresh. Old age comes, just the same."

"Or an alien energy bullet." The Captain could never help that dull sense of satisfaction at the thought of Emily's death, though it came with a twin ghost of strange compassion now. He'd looked into her eyes, had seen she knew she wasn't coming back. _'Going to see my Alice, now,_ ' she'd whispered with dull, unfocused eyes. _'Going to see my Ally in Hell.'_

"There is a more powerful step," Wei reminded him. "Old, so old, and hard for even me to remember. You stopped me from helping Ahn Mei. You said you wouldn't let her become a monster, like me."

 

_(Warm and trusting. Ianto, settling back against Jack's chest. "You're not a monster."_  
_Oh, but I am, love. Trust me, I am.)_

 

"I can't take that back," Jack admitted. He tapped the second thumb drive, hoping to distract his adversary. "This was harder to come by. Do you know the Jade Chamber?" Wei nodded, just a fractional motion of her chin. Like Torchwood, America's Bureau 13, Japan's _Kage Kaigi_ , The Jade Chamber was China's secret, black-box operation for all those things that slithered under the facade of everyday life. "They don't know you exist, they only have hearsay and myth-- which is good for you, especially considering Macao will have to pass back to the Chinese Government eventually. This drive contains the only copy of any file that could possibly lead the Jade Chamber to suspect there's truth behind the rumor." Oh, that distrustful gleam in her eyes! Jack looked at her, utterly serious. "Do you understand me? You're completely off the radar now."

Wei's chest was shaking, costume beads trembling on their strands. Jack came to understand she was breathing heavily, quick pants of disbelief. For a moment, just a moment, neither of them were standing in her tiny, 21st Century kitchen. They were in a nighttime courtyard, staring at each other over the Ahn Mei's fatally convulsing body. He could smell the bonfire, see the terrible life it gave to the shadows. If he looked away, he'd see Mr. Huang bleeding to death on the stone walkway, victim of Wei's interrupted ritual. Then and now; 1919 and 2009, Wei asked incredulously, "Why would you do this?"

"And," Jack went on, as if he hadn't heard her. The sense of time overlapping brought goose flesh to the back of his neck. "I know why you keep waiting, even if you have to live in cheap, squalid apartments and offer abortions for trade. You hate having gone to ground; you loved silk, jewels, and fine things. I remember." Jack had his own hot needle-- he wedged it now, jabbing carefully into the gap in her armor. "You're waiting for her. You think she'll come back."

"The King of Hell will not let me go so easily once I get there." Her voice held an almost academic tone of consideration. "But Ahn Mei was good. They would let her drink of forgetfulness, and send her back to this world."

"And if you find her, I give you my word not to interfere." Jack heard the fervent edge creeping into his own words, but could do nothing to change it. "I'll even help you, if you need it."

Wei's eyes searched him, disbelief as tangible as the dough in her hands. "You can not be Jack Harkness," she said at last, finding footing in her cynicism. "Who are you?"

He shook his head impatiently, shoving the memory sticks in his back pocket. "I'll give you the records, and my word, if you help me. I don't have your patience, or your faith. I can't wait and take that chance-- I'm not even sure if I believe it's possible... I'd go crazy. Please. Help me fix this now. Let's trade."

"All this you give to me, in exchange for... _what_?"

 

Jack brushed his hands on one of Wei's kitchen towels, making sure they were clean before he reached inside the coat. Gently, reverently, he removed the photograph from its place within the inner lining. The Captain could only look at it briefly-- Ianto's genuine, affectionate grin caught unawares by Toshiko's camera. How he'd scowled at her for that, never a fan of the spotlight. 

"I have... his body," Jack forced the words out, showing the picture to Wei. He thought of Ahn Mei's shy smile, caught forever in sepia and glass. They'd both been so young, so clean and forgiving under the dirt of the world. "With Torchwood's technology, we can preserve it indefinitely. We can even remove toxins from inert organic matter, but that's too little, too late. There are... things, in the debris of our old headquarters. If I dug long enough, I could probably find something to start his heart again. But it would only be a breathing body-- do you understand me? I need--"

"The soul," Wei finished. She reached for the photo, but Jack snatched it back quickly. Her neon nails missed it by mere centimeters. Carefully, Jack returned the picture to its place in the lining-- when he looked back at Wei, she was shaking again. He almost spoke-- to say her name, or ask what was wrong, he wasn't sure-- when a giggle escaped her lips. Lan Wei crossed her arms over her stomach and laughed. She took big gasps of air between her high pitched giggles, the sound so loud it filled the kitchen, the apartment, a beat almost as terrible in its merciless abandon as the Master's Drums. She laughed, eyes blinking with water and little flashes of fear but it was, for the most part, a sound of unrepentant joy. 

"You!" Her finger waved towards him wildly, frantic in her mirth. "Oh, it's too good. You fell _in love_! Real love," she gasped again, "worst kind, best kind. Devastates. Jack Harkness in love." Shocked into English, she managed, "Too funny! I stop laughing, maybe next century."

" _Shut up_." He bit into the words with his teeth. And she did. As sudden as unexpected as sunshine while it rains, Wei became all business. 

"I shouldn't help you," she murmured, her original village dialect all but caressing the words. "I should let you suffer, like me."

 

Tensed in mind and body, Jack waited her out.

"You are ready to let someone die to take his place?" Again, that almost academic curiosity. "That's what I was doing, when you stopped me from helping Ahn Mei. Our filthy husband's heart for her long life."

"No," Jack said, surprising her again. "Ianto would never forgive me. If you need a heart, you can get one very easily. Take mine." He grinned, taking comfort in erasing her self-satisfied laughter. "Oh, it'll grow back-- you can bet on that."

Wei frowned. She shook her head, sniffing the air and removing the simmering pot from the oven to cool. "You want me to use your heart."

"Yes, and my blood."

"You are not like other people! You are... _wrong_." Now she was straining the dumplings dry, catching the excess red liquid in a plastic jug. Waste not, want not. The smell was a strange, heady thing-- it made the mouth water and the stomach turn all at once. 

Jack leaned against the counter. "Believe me when I say you're not the first person I've heard that from." He switched from foot to foot, suddenly filled with nervous energy, holding the coat close. "I brought him back once, you know. But it wasn't enough. Like you said to Mrs Yang, you have to work from the inside."

"He will have to feed from you. Only you. He will have to stay by your side forever." There was a pregnant pause, and her smirk came back. "He may come to hate you."

"I've made up my mind." Not even a glancing blow there, though the fear was deep and real in Jack's bones. It was simply in a part of his body that was still numb. Small mercy.

 

"You are not Jack Harkness," Wei said, having come to her own conclusions. "You are his ghost, driven mad by grief!" Briefly, Jack thought of Gwen, begging him to stay in Cardiff. One of her hands holding Rhys', the other trying to grasp for his, assuring him they could rebuild. Here, drowning in this odor of stolen life, someone was finally speaking the truth. 

He rubbed a hand over his face, absently watching her arrange the dumplings in a plastic container. "I think you're right."

"Your boy," Wei asked in another flash of insight utterly without compassion, "where is he?"

"Already in Macao. They'll bring him after dark-- I just got the lease on an apartment nearby this morning. Hua She Street Number 10." For a moment, he thought Wei would take offense at the implied assumption, but she seemed focused on logistics.

"How long has it been?"

 

_(How long? Are you crazy? How long? A moment. Ten minutes. He was just here, I was just shaking him, telling him he had to get out. I woke up and he was so still. He's been gone so long. It's been ten thousand years. It's been an eternity.)_

 

He said, "This is the morning of the fifth day."

"We have to hurry, then," Wei said, determinedly snapping the lid shut. She shoved the completed meal in the refrigerator and reached for a ridiculously floral apron. "If he comes tonight, then we will have everything ready. We will start now." There was a long, sharp cleaver in a wooden block by the stove-- Wei grabbed that, a dry wash rag, and a cooler already packed with ice. Imperiously, she told him, "Go into the bathroom and take off your clothes."

Somewhere, far away, in that numb body, there was leering retort for that. In the here and now, there was only a sigh.

 

Mechanically, Jack did as he was told. The bathroom was in worse shape than the living space and kitchen combined. There were cracks deep in every cement wall, and a single dirty mirror above the sink. The humidity blurred the already poor image, mercifully allowing Jack to disregard it as a phantom flash of color outside his gaze. He folded the coat, then his dress shirt and under shirt. He removed his braces, socks and boots. Gingerly, he carried them into the living space and placed them safely on a chair in the corner. He wore his skin like he wore his clothes-- with the utter confidence of one who knows they look good-- but Wei did not look at him, and his gaze never reached her. It was the sofa his eyes riveted on. While he'd been in the bathroom, Wei had taken the butcher knife off the couch and covered the upholstery with a blue plastic tarp. A strangled cry was beating in his chest. A thousand endless deaths as bone re-grew and sinew re-knit. The entire nervous system exposed to the air as he writhed, chained to the wall. Screaming, always screaming, even when they began pouring the concrete down his throat. 

"Lay down." Wei stood there in her flowery apron, knife in hand. 

He laid back, hating the sound of the plastic as it crinkled under his weight. He kept his hands at his sides, called upon Time Agent training that felt thousands of years old. 

_(Go away. Go elsewhere. My will lies in my mind, and my mind is the barricade.)_

"You know," Wei said with a girlish lilt. "Maybe I'll enjoy this job, just a little." 

"Get on with it."

 

She rolled her eyes and switched to English, as if concerned there might be some sort of misunderstanding at this point. "You pay for him, with your heart, your blood. Yes?"

"Yes."

"That maybe not be all of it?"

He gazed up at her, an upside down baby-doll face. "Not all of it? My blood will keep him alive, my heart will help us find his soul. If you need anything else-- bone, a pound of flesh-- just take it."

Wei made another one of her delicate snorts, "Never mind. You only a man. You not understand these things. You agree-- yes, no?"

 

_(Ianto, wearing that absurd vest, brushing the dust and remaining shards of concrete off Jack's skin. Those big blue eyes, so full of faith and feeling-- he'd petted Jack and cursed like a sailor. Cursed Britain and its Queen, the entirety of UNIT, the ungrateful bureaucracy and the foolish police and anyone else he could think of. Kissing Jack, quick little gentle kisses, until Rhys hollered that he wouldn't stand for them having sex in the back of his car.)_

 

Jack said it like a vow, "Yes."

"Yes," Wei affirmed, even as Jack fixed his minds eye on his own, barren internal landscape. She raised the knife, but hesitated. "You not bleed on my couch." When Jack opened his mouth for an unexpected bark of laughter, Wei shoved the dry wash cloth inside. "Also, not scream too loud. Neighbors."

_Ianto-- Ianto, are you there? It's always so dark. Stay still. You must know I'm coming for you._

Lan Wei brought the knife down and started digging.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GLOSSARY  
>  _Cheongsam_ \- the tighter, high-collared dress that has influenced modern Chinese costume.  
>  _Kage Kaigi_ \- literally "Shadow Council". Just me making stuff out of thin air, but Britain shouldn't get to be the only one with suspicious extra-government agencies!  
>  _Tunguska_ \- an area in present day central Russia. On June 30th 1908, there occurred the largest over-land explosion in recorded history-- 1000 times as powerful as the nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima. Scientists are still debating the cause of this explosion (meteor, comet, alien spacecraft? ^_~). At any rate, _if_ something did land in Tunguska, we _know_ Holryod's Torchwood would hunt it down and consider it theirs for the taking. *grins*


	4. Chapter Three

The Void was absolute Nothing, and the Void was All.

 

It had no line of demarkation, no sense of horizon or space. It sprawled-- colossal beyond human comprehension-- in every direction, yet it was as close and inescapable as the body's own living flesh. Made out of absence, framed by angles that made no sense, it existed without animation or mercy or intellect. And yet, somehow, it was alive.  
The Void knew Jack Harkness; the Void _remembered_.

 

Jack lay in the darkness, in the absence that was neither of those things because it was so much worse. The mind could not grasp it, rejected it and looked for some frame of reference, finding none. The Nothing ran sticky, terrible black fingers along and through him; it probed and clogged his mouth, nose, and eyes, though he no longer possessed any of those things. As close as claustrophobia, as endlessly open as the worst nightmare of being alone. Jack himself lay at once trapped in its confines and scattered into tiny, still bleeding shards all across its unfathomable geography. Once, he'd stood with Martha and the Doctor at the end of the Universe-- they'd looked into the sky as entropy snuffed out the last of the stars. As horrible as that had been, that chill hand clutching the back of the heart, at least the memory of the stars remained.  
This was so, so much worse. 

 

_(Here is a piece:_

_**I want to scream, just let me have a mouth to scream with, and it will be better, because I can let this out.** The kind of screaming no one comes back from, going on forever. It is the screaming that terrorizes nurses, making mothers moan and cry and it finally, _finally_ stems the tide of Gwen's self-righteous words. The mind looks on certain things and turns away from sanity; Jack knows this, and Jonah Bevin knows this-- the Master knows this, and his laughter is only a scream in disguise. Later, in the close, warm night Ianto will swallow Jack's screams with a kiss, murmuring statistics and nonsense and maybe even the occasional covert endearment, drawing him back to the world._

_That is gone now.)_

 

_(Here is another shard: **Boeshane**_.  
_It is the word hidden inside each syllable of 'home'; it has not been built yet, and still it lay in ruins. Jack-who-is-not-yet-Jack runs down the slopes of white gold sand, he sucks in lungfuls of ocean air and whoops so the sound will carry. His legs are longer and faster than the other boys, faster than his brother's. One day, a shadow will fall, Jack will run and forever hate himself for running. Papa will lie prone amongst the fires, Grey will be missing, and Ahmah will be already dead years before. Mother will put her hands to her face and weep, refusing to embrace her son. There shall come another planet, clogged and industrial, and doctors with bland faces to tell Jack he'll been going to live in a crèche with many other children, and won't that be nice?_

_So Boeshane is, was, and will be no more._ )

 

_(And this bit, bleeding over here: **I think I'm dying, Jamie.**_

_They are old enough to enlist; they are way too young to be soldiers. Jack is still several years away from the Time Agency or John Hart-- he's barely old enough to drink, and he still gets carded at most professional sex establishments. He answers to 'Jamie', which is an easy way for his creche-siblings to shorten his birth name. Jace is slim and blond, he has eyes as green as a powerful squall whirling off the coast of Boeshane. They fight in a war that is just the latest in a long, long line of wars. In the daylight, the bombs blaze; they see every terrible thing they were capable of imagining, and quite a bit they never could. At night, they touch each other and sigh as they once did in the darkness of their crèche bunks. They are soldiers, but they are also cannon fodder-- they are captured and tortured as a matter of course. The enemy is that same terrible enemy of the past, and thus cannot be named. Inevitably, their captors tear into Jace's body with detached curiosity, and they make Jack-who-was-Jamie watch. There are bits of Jace all over the room-- it doesn't seem possible he could still be breathing, but he is. The enemy applies green rods and blue electrodes, purple discs and orange fluids, and they force them onto Jace in what the other boy mockingly calls 'the rainbow orgy'._

_Then, one day, he turns to Jamie with a smear of blood on one cheek and a spot of dried orange ooze on the other. He is speared through with green rods that are not the same green as his eyes. He says, " **I think I'm dying, Jamie"**. Its the same bashful, honest tone he used when they were twelve, asking 'you wanna?' and reaching for Jack's hips. In the space of time it takes Jack to open his mouth, Jace's eyes go dull and he breathes no more. _

_All of that is dead and left behind.)_

 

_(Here is one more splinter, quivering in the dark: **I was waiting for you, Sir.**_

_Jack is gasping back to life in 21st Century Cardiff, already anticipating the ache and disgust that usually accompanies his return. Instead, he is warm and dry; he is not blind-sided by bright destruction, or faced with a human debris scattered around him. The Master is not breathing, hot and rotting, in his face. It is night, and rain patters gently against the roof of the SUV. Jack is laying with his head in Ianto's lap-- those long, beautiful Welsh fingers run through his hair and caress his temples._

_"What...?" Jack asks, wincing at his own lack of eloquence. Ianto keeps up the soothing touches, waits for Jack's breathing to settle._

_"You got 'im," Ianto assures his leader. In the blurry halo of the streetlights, the captain can just make out the slight tilt of Ianto's head._

_"Cygnian Shell Serpent," Jack says, grounding himself in space and time._

_"Already bagged and tagged in the trunk." It's very quick, but there's a little ghost of Ianto's smile. "That was not part of the Weevil-hunting bargain. I have a very clear checklist for Weevils, but Shell Serpents? Who knew something that size could have such a big mouth?" His hands are warm-- they abandon their hypnotic circles to brush hesitantly along the muscles of Jack's stomach._

_"Don't let that fool you," Jack leers playfully. "Size _does_ matter." He is warm, Ianto has brought him out of the chill Cardiff rain; they are pressed together in the confines of the SUV's back seat and, if Jack turns his head, he'll nuzzle into Ianto's thigh and smell that cedar-honey scent that rises with the younger man's emotions._

_Ianto doesn't seem to have heard him. "Your shirt is a complete loss." Regret is in every touch of those hands, stroking again and again over the now-invisible places where the Shell Serpents tried to chew _through_ Jack. There is, indeed, blood all over the tattered remains of Jack's dress shirt, but his coat is intact._

_"It's okay." Voice too thick, the Captain captures one of those precious hands, begins laving the wrist with his tongue._

_"No. No." Ianto's breathing is heavy now, Jack feels that pulse under his lips and it is so _good_. And yet, the young man has his eyes squeezed shut-- as if he is in pain. "You have to be more careful..." A pregnant pause. "Shirts don't grow on trees."_

_"How can you be sure?" Talented as he is, Jack manages to maneuver so that he and Ianto are nose to nose. He kisses his young man, this brave secretary who has a Weevil hunting checklist; this archivist who thinks nothing of collecting and cataloguing dead aliens so his boss doesn't have to concern himself with it when he comes back from the dead. Teasingly, "Maybe there's a planet where clothing *does* grow on trees, hmmm?"_

_"If there was, you wouldn't know about it," Ianto gasps, leaning in to suck a little on Jack's lower lip. "I can't see you going someplace where one could be so easily covered. You're more the clothing-optional sort. Always looking for an excuse to show off that arse." They're working on the clothing-optional part now, though there isn't a lot of room for movement, and they're hardly as far out of the way as they should be for this sort of thing. Jack is working on Ianto's tie, on the ridiculously difficult buttons of his vest._

_"Why didn't you drive back to the hub?" the Captain asks, not really thinking about it. He has his coat off, and proceeds to simply tear the shreds of his shirt away. Ianto's grip tightens suddenly on his shoulders._

_**"I was waiting for you, Sir."**_

_It's warm and dry. He's alive, and safe here in the rain-washed darkness with Ianto, who held him, who waited for him. Jack wants to say something-- 'thank you', maybe, and yet so much more-- but nothing will come out. Instead, he takes over the lovemaking; he reduces Ianto to little squirms and shudders and glories in his possession. He thinks-- without looking at what he is thinking, because he's not good at self-honesty-- **this is mine this is mine he's mine.**_

_And he's wrong. Ianto's dead and gone now, too.)_

 

The Void held all of this. In the up-down, senseless geometry of nothing, there was no mercy, only a gibbering something that saw but could not understand. Jack had no eyes to cry with, no lungs for screaming, no lips to speak, but he struggled never the less. 

_Give him back!_ He projected with a violence-- all the rage of a storm trying to gain movement in a vaccuum. _Whatever you want, it's yours. I don't care any more! Give me Ianto, give him back and you can have whatever you please._

 

He thought of Owen, battling the skull-and-bones image of Death in the middle of a hospital lobby. Of Toshiko, talking about the power of that last angry thought one held onto at the threshold of the end. Faith, swallowed by a coat she'd scrounged from somewhere, flipping tarot cards in a filthy back alley. The Tower. The World. The Knight with Jack's face. Gwen, muttering absently about the class she'd taken on Welsh mythology; faeries and the three weaver-women of fate. On Boeshane, Death was always portrayed as a woman in the pantomimes; a sexy, curved shadow that inspired lust and fear. 

A knight in his armor. Three old crones spinning and weaving and cutting the threads.

_You bitches **owe** me! Do you hear me? You've taken so much from me-- you've taken everyone! I want Ianto **back**._

Once, Faith had turned over the Death card, laying it out with that childish, delicate precision. Jack had laughed; he'd been drunk and brash and he'd told her maybe she should remove it from the deck.

G-d, he was such a fool. 

 

In the darkness, _something **moved.**_ It sounded like the shifting of ashes, the grinding of bones in the charnel house. It was too large, too horrible to fathom, but it _stirred._

 

The terror that lanced through Jack was chill and sharp-- it overpowered his anger, but not his need. With that fear came awareness of something much more familiar. It was the approach of life; that feeling of being dragged back, as if by a hook behind his bodiless spine. There were no muscles for Jack to tense, but he did it anyway, anticipating the hot-glass agony of resurrection. As much as he hated it, it made him bold.

_I said, give him _back_! I'll come for him if I have to! I have nothing to be afraid of, nothing to lose, not anymore._

There was movement in the darkness, the roaring of pain in his consciousness. And yet, neither of these things concerned Jack Harkness in those breathless moments before he returned to life.  
He thought, he swore, he sensed something. Like a sound right next to the ear.

_Jack._ A sigh. Fearful, exasperated, but filled with undeniable affection.

_(Ianto)_

 

Then it was over.

* * * * * * 

Jack drew a sharp but quiety breath, opening his eyes to stare at Lan Wei's cracked, watermarked ceiling. He still lay on the couch, naked and covered in dried blood, as well as whatever bits of fat or flesh Wei had ripped out in her haste to get to his heart. His pulse pounded in his ears and his chest felt burned through with pins and needles, but he was alive. Fighting that strange sense of vertigo that always accompanied his return, Jack struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. The plastic made horrible little crinkling noises as he moved, and he quickly discovered a particular ache in his side. Reaching behind himself, he pulled forth a long sliver of bone. A rib, probably. Time refused to settle around him; he opened his mouth to say Ianto's name.

Instead, he coughed up blood.

 

"You're awake." Lan Wei appeared in the kitchen doorway, holding her gaudy red beads aside. She frowned at him; a curiously aged expression on her youthful face, all the more disconcerting for the wrinkles that refused to form. Carelessly, she tossed a rag at him. Jack took it quickly, chest heaving as he tried to expel the blood from his lungs. Probably drowned in his own fluids before he had time to exsanguinate, the Captain considered clinically. The terrible, stale-skin smell of the apartment had diminished somewhat-- Jack looked around to find the lightest of breezes coming in through the open balcony door. He had no idea how much time had passed, but the slant of the sun was different, and the air now swelled with the possibility of rain. Wei considered him for a moment, before disappearing back into her den-like kitchen. When she returned, she had a bowl of water and another washrag. 

" _Xiexie_ ," Jack managed, reaching for both when she set them on the nearby table.

Wei rolled her eyes, quickly admonishing him in Chinese, "What took you so long? Half the day is wasted!" She shook her head, buns and ribbons bobbing. "Don't make a mess."

"Well, you try regrowing a heart," he grumbled in English. He barely had enough patience to translate her speech, and he certainly wasn't in the mood to bother making his own mind switch languages. There was something he was struggling for, groping in numb vaults of his emotions. He had forgotten... what?

"Men so lazy," Wei sneered, tossing it back like a return volley. After a moment, she looked at him coquettishly. "Making more dumplings. You hungry?" Her skin might be smooth as fine white silk, but Jack thought it was that feline smile that gave away her age. The curve and sadistic pleasure belonged on the ancient hags of folklore-- all those cautionary tales.

Stomach rolling, he said, "No. I'm not hungry." It was a lie, of course-- he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten-- but Wei didn't bother to call him on it. Instead, she vanished once more between the beads.

 

Dipping the clean rag in warm water, Jack began to systematically wipe away the evidence of his latest demise. Briefly, an almost comical milage gage flickered in his mind's eye, but the truth was simply that Jack had lost track of how many times he'd died. He'd woken in dirty alleys, covered in musty hay; he'd woken surrounded by the bodies of fallen comrades, to the loose dirty of a hasty grave, and to a bucket of water courtesy Miss Alice Guppy. There had been moments of pain, trapped underneath fallen bricks and mortar, and there'd been Gwen's needy hand, grasping his as he lay in the Torchwood Morgue. Tish, crying into his shirt on the Valiant-- or the Master, already working on another death while Jack recovered from the last. He'd woken with the knowledge that he didn't want to; that he'd been cheated in succumbing to the darkness, because Ianto had remained behind. Now, he toweled off quietly as the cracked, green walls slowly stopped spinning around him. He stood, tossing the rag back in the now murky pink water, and folded the plastic tarp. 

 

Wiping a hand over his face, he stretched and began to look for his clothes, instead finding himself staring up at Ahn Mei's portrait. High on her shelf, flanked by statues of Kwan Yin and several cheerful peach children, Ahn Mei's silent, frozen face seemed suddenly to have more power. As if she had somehow witnessed the whole thing, blushing in her long ago garden behind the glass. Jack bit his lip, really looking at her. He wondered if Lan Wei had explained everything before the ritual began-- if that painfully young, naive country girl had understood the _intent_. For all her fine jeweled combs and embroidered robes, there was an air about that two-dimensional moment, be it her shy gaze or the set of her shoulders, that showed how out of place she was. He'd never known her-- only stood over her as she died, convulsing with energy from some, ephemeral, uncompleted circuit. She'd called out for Wei, reached out a quivering hand, saying, " _Baobei... deui mhjyuh..._ "

Photographs were only useless attempts to halt time. They showed the moment, not the context. So why did it feel like those doe-eyes were on him, urging?

_You've forgotten something important._

Death did that to him, sometimes, worse than a hangover from the alcohol that no longer affected him or the crash from any futuristic drug. It always felt like a crapshoot-- would he wake up feeling like he could take on whatever had already killed him, or would the damage linger like a ghost? Sometimes Ianto would...  
_**Ianto.**_

_(That sigh. Away, away in the vast empty, he'd felt it close and coming to comprise his whole world.)_

 

"I can find him," Jack whispered, with only Ahn Mei's picture to hear him. His limbs felt energy return to them-- he dressed quickly, tucking, buttoning and zipping neatly, but absent of consideration. In the kitchen, Lan Wei was singing, her voice the light and airy soprano of Cantonese opera.

 

_"See how the spring blossoms have yielded their beauty //_  
_If only to the dry well and these crumbling walls..."_ *

 

As he pulled his braces into place, Jack felt a strange sensation. Everything was still so distant and foreign... was that feeling just his newly grown heart, or a tiny twinge of hope? Almost reflexively, he clamped down on the thought, shielding with a power completely unnecessary to a century lacking trained psychics. The instinct was an honest one, honed through time. Faith and anticipation had the same sharp edge, but he guarded it and reveled in the difference of its pain. If Gwen somehow came, bearing her guilt and her needy hands; if Martha came with her cool compassion and honest tears; if the Doctor came bearing all the weight and responsibility of shattered timelines, Jack felt he would simply shake his head and leave them gaping. He remembered Ahmah, sitting with him as they watched Papa and Mother dance, swaying to faintly melancholy strains. Her ringed hand had held his small one a bit too tight, and she'd whispered that the most dangerous weapon in the Universe was love. 

 

_"It seems we have met before //_  
_and beheld each other in silent awe."_

 

Lan Wei's voice was rising, playing over the high notes. He shrugged on his RAF coat like armor and looked at the clock. She was right, it _had_ taken him a while-- the hands had cycled three times since he'd arrived, and it was now two o'clock in the afternoon. He would go into the kitchen and finalize things with Wei. Quickly, Jack amended internally, because he had a lot to do. 

_(Such a small thing, that sigh. But it had its own weight. It was real.)_

He would be prepared. He would have everything ready for Ianto when he drew him gently out of the darkness. Nothing would be out of place; Jack would have Lan Wei's help and, afterwards, he'd draw soothing circles on Ianto's skin, to ease the transition. 

Maybe there would be rain on the roof.

 

It was two in the afternoon in the humid port city of Macao. The sun swelled the air, baking the rooftops, but the sky gathered with darkening clouds in the East, out to sea. It was six in the morning in Cardiff, where already people turned in their beds and moaned at the sound of the machinery starting earnest excavation of the Plass. There was an alley, and a small hand that turned a card. It depicted a Knight with the face of Jack Harkness; the eerie illustration starred off and away from the viewer at some distant, fixed and precious point. 

He held his love like a sword in his hand.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GLOSSARY:  
>  _Xiexie_ \- Thank you.  
>  _Kwan Yin_ \- The Chinese goddess of mercy.  
>  _Baobei_ \- Precious, darling.  
>  _Deui mhjyuh_ \- I'm sorry (cannot face).  
> *The song Lan Wei is singing is from _Peony Pavillion_ , a Chinese opera written during the Ming Dynasty by Tang Xianzu. It's a very famous play-- both a love story and a comedy. The love story revolves around the sixteen year old daughter of an Imperial Offical, and a young scholar. They meet in their dreams and, when separated by the waking world, the young girl dies of love sickness. Her young man ends up bargaining with the Courts of the Underworld to resurrect her. ... ^^; Okay, so I'm not subtle, and neither is Lan Wei. *sheepish*


	5. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Updated Author's Notes 9/25/2017** : Previous chapters of this story, originally posted on AO3, have undergone further revisions. I plan to post the remaining chapters a week until I catch up with myself. (Way, _way_ too much Doctor Who, I tell you. ^_^')  
>  Once more, a shout out to [badly_knitted](http://archiveofourown.org/users/badly_knitted), for all her kind encouragement and continuing friendship. If you need some lovely Janto fic (to say nothing of several other wonderful pairings) on a far more regular basis than that provided by yours truly, she is definitely your gal!

It hardly seemed possible, but-- behind the whitewashed wall facing the street-- the three-building apartment complex situated at Hua She Street 10 was in worse shape than Number 7. Jack stood in the courtyard, looking at up the seemingly endless stacking of dark windows and concrete walkways. There was an air of abandonment here, a sense of being adrift that-- despite Lan Wei's insidious influence-- had been absent at Number 7. From where he stood, Jack could see just one young housewife hanging her limp wash on the second floor. The courtyard itself was empty save for one scrawny, oddly determined tree. Further down, by the rows of covered parking spaces, Jack could see a dusty red ball and tricycle leaning against a steel strut. There were, however, no children visible, no rowdy sounds of their play, or the chuckling fan-waving of the women who watched them. Nodding under the darkening clouds, Jack let out a long, soundless breath. The white and green cooler he carried felt at once heavy and light; he was starving and tired and yet fighting the urge to bounce on his heels. He let his expression settle, honest and pained, because there was no one around the see it. The buildings at Number 10 stood paralyzed and waiting, as well they might. They would be demolished in ten months time. 

 

Jack registered the shuffle-stomp of the landlord before he saw him, but he only turned when he heard the old man grumble a greeting.

"Mr. Yu?" the Captain felt that smile flash on his face, strange as the phantom muscle cramp of an amputee. "I'm Jack Harkness. We spoke on the phone this morning?"

"I know who you are," Mr. Yu fought the curving of his own aging spine to look Jack in the eye. Keeping his mental emanations calm and friendly, Jack returned the regard. It was as effortless; almost an after thought, like the whitewash on the gate. Briefly adjusting his thick, black-rimmed glasses, Mr. Yu finally nodded. He took a brightly colored wrapper from his pants pocket, chewing thoughtfully on a fresh piece of gum. 

"Maybe it will rain today," he said, apparently satisfied with whatever he had seen-- or thought he'd seen-- in Jack. "Maybe not." The bent shoulders seemed to actually creak as he rolled them. "Come on. Some of your things have been delivered." Silently, the captain kept pace just behind the old man, breathing through his mouth to avoid the sticky, childishly sweet smell of bubblegum.

 

The apartment Jack had chosen was in the third building-- the tallest, and the furthest from the gate. He walked, one hand casually in his coat pocket, the other gripping the cooler as the afternoon humidity seemed to climb higher by the minute. Mr. Yu, sweating in his simple undershirt and trousers, gave the captain's RAF coat a questioning look, but let it be. Instead, he used one surprisingly strong hand to pull himself up along the metal railing of the open stairwell, muttering as he did so.

"Most people are moving out," he said, shooting Jack another sideways glance. "If they stay, it's because they can't afford any better. Government's going to tear this place down come April-- prime property, they say! And what am I supposed to do, in my old age?"

"Did you get the money I wired this morning?" Jack asked politely, already knowing the answer. UNIT and the ever-ambitious Johnson might have frozen his British assets easily, but Jack Harkness had lived on far more dangerous planets, and though more intricate deceptions than they could imagine. There were several numbered bank accounts, tucked away in corners of the globe where the extradition laws were weak, and would remain so for the next several centuries. Once, Alice Guppy had told him he'd need currency-- not that he'd needed her to point that out. He'd taken what she'd given and played by the old rules. Somewhere, rattling around his vast, internal corridors, there still existed the young man who'd proudly graduated from the Time Agency in regal black and gold. He remembered standing, hands clasped behind his back, as they recited the Temporal Code from memory. Oh, how he'd winked and smirked at John across Great Hall, because he'd done it flawlessly when everyone else had stumbled at least once-- the erstwhile Captain Hart included. 

"I have your payment," Mr. Yu said, grunting as they turned to climb another flight. He paused, breath hitching and, for a moment, Jack considered reaching out a hand to steady the elder man. One look from those proud, narrow eyes convinced him otherwise. Jack held perfectly still, letting Mr. Yu struggle up several steps before he began to follow, and earned a nod of grudging respect in return. "Why do you want to pay so much, Mr. Harkness, to live in a place like this?"

"It suits my needs." He'd been trained, and trained well. Don't leave all your assets in one place; keep your mouth shut and, when you do open it, keep the lies simple.

Presently, Mr. Yu nodded towards the cooler. "Drugs?" 

"No," Jack's small chuckle was grim but earnest. 

"These stairs," the landlord cursed, seemingly changing the subject. "The elevator in this building is broken, and what's the use in fixing it?" They were approaching the eighth floor, and the room Jack had reserved. Mr. Yu let Jack push open the heavy metal door-- the apartments were all outside access only but, somehow, the concrete walkway smelled stale in a way the closed stairwell had not. 

 

One withering hand reached across the threshold to block Jack's way as the old man enunciated, "I don't want trouble."

"You won't get any from me." That cheesy grin felt worn and frayed when he summoned it, the pain of skin irritated by harsh cloth. Or close and intimate cement. The feeling in Jack's chest eased a little when he saw the luggage stacked neatly at the end of the hallway. He'd traveled light-- another rule carefully observed-- just three bags. His military rucksack, worn maroon steamer trunk, and the functionally elegant black suitcase sat together in front of yet another unremarkable metal door, clustered like patient hunting dogs. 

"Apartment 809," Mr. Yu said, the jingling of his keys the only fanfare. He quickly turned the lock with his master copy, then haltingly pulled at the cluster to remove Jack's version. This close, the smell of bubblegum was powerful, but underneath that Jack detached a whiff of tobacco, and the sweat of someone trying to give up something they were loathe to part with.

_Good luck with that,_ Jack mentally shook his head. 

 

( _Another rule: **sample the local vices to blend in, but never let them take hold.** He thought of alcohol and cigarettes during the war years, the dim lighting of the drinking dens he'd haunted before his run-in with Torchwood. Snatching a twist of pipe-- loaded with highly addictive Wormwood-- from Rose's innocent hands when they stopped off in the 32nd Century. Dancing with Toshiko on the eve of World War II; holding the squirming, hours-old bundle of his daughter in the middle of a hospital that suddenly seemed threateningly primitive. Ianto's hands, smoothing over his shoulders as he helped Jack with his coat. Ianto, pressing a brief, sweet kiss to Jack's lips when he thought the other man was asleep. _

_'Aren't you the holy one!' John had once shouted at him during one of their many time-loop brawls. 'The Face of Boeshane; the Agency's bright, promising apprentice! Well, I've been under your skin, lover, and I know the truth. Dig deep enough and you'll always find a hypocrite underneath.'_

_Somewhere, between murder rehab and one of his many orgies, John Hart was probably laughing at him._ )

 

Something cold and firm pressed into Jack's hand-- the key to Apartment 809. Jack closed his fingers around it, grounding himself with marginal success. His body was protesting yet another sleepless resurrection, and his stomach lanced him through with hunger. Ignorant of Jack's lapse, the landlord continued speaking. 

"Ms. Chen is the only other tenant left in this building-- on the opposite end of the fourth floor. She moved in when my wife and I first took charge of the complex." A look of distant, bitter consideration stole over the old man's face. "I expect she intends to die in that room." Shaking his head, Mr. Yu turned, apparently unconcerned with Jack's reaction to the accommodations. "You'll be alone here, like you asked," he added, beginning his slow, painful shuffle down the hall.

 

Absently, Jack murmured his thanks. He set the cooler down by the door-- far away from his other belongings-- and turned the plain metal door knob. Inside, Apartment 809 yawned its emptiness, just a wide expanse of faux wood-patterned linoleum and frosted glass windows. The main room curved in the shape of an 'L', obviously meant to act as both bedroom and living space; in the far corner, a narrow door cordoned off a small but serviceable bathroom. On the other side, there was a tiny kitchen nook with jarringly gray formica countertops, an ancient oven, and a gaping cavity for a refrigerator. Near the window, Jack could see an intricate cobweb stretching between the corners, and an old wicker rocking chair. Other than that, the apartment was just as he'd been told-- old, unfurnished, but no-questions-asked. His heart, that fresh organ, gave a little lurch. Biting his lip, Jack rocked back on his heels, feeling the open space but also the possibilities. 

_This is going to be home._ Jack flexed his hand absently, tasting a memory. _At least for a little while._

 

( _He'd put his hand on Ianto's shoulder, that very first day, taking in the astonishment on the younger man's face with honest, friendly pleasure. They'd stood by the railing just inside the Hub's rolling cog door-- Ianto in one of his fine, understated suits, freshly pressed and ready for the job he'd almost literally wrestled from Jack's hands. How young he'd looked, grinning up at Myfawny as she spread her wings in the cavernous Hub, swooping around the fountain run-off and the delicate metal framework that protected the Rift monitor. That smile had stayed in place while Jack explained the invisible lift, motioning towards the graffiti Welsh dragon and the hatch that lead to the archives. Then, then the Welshman looked down-- had seen the spread of desks arranged like a grade-school common room. Owen, Tosh, and Suzie, facing towards each other in an odd triangle. Tosh's desk had been piled with bits of computer hardware and wire, but Suzie and Owen's were wastelands of wrappers, old Chinese takeout, and un-filed paperwork arranged like the haphazard debris of a bomb._

_"That's your job," Jack had said, hand still on the younger man's shoulder. He'd felt the warmth seeping through the expensive fabric and-- though he'd told himself it was just a game-- he'd taken a moment to appreciate the flare of Ianto's scent from the prolonged, deliberate contact. Sweet but earthy, like sugar cane fresh from the field. "Maintaining the archives-- which haven't been properly looked after for at least a decade-- and keeping my people from trashing the place." Ianto's smile had turned rueful and almost self-mocking, so Jack added, "Honestly, an alien could be hiding in Owen's old take-out and we'd never know."_

_"I did say I wouldn't mind being a butler," Ianto's voice was quiet, as if he was turning the words back on himself._

_"You wanted a job here, you got one," the Captain tried to keep his tone light. He ran his hand across the Welshman's shoulder, down his arm to squeeze the skinny elbow. Just the night before, he'd lain nose to nose with this young man on the cold warehouse floor; they'd felt each other's matching, pounding heart beats and almost, just almost, angled their lips. And-- because Ianto had gotten up, because he'd quickly turned and composed himself, walking away-- Jack added, "At least for a little while."_

_"I'm not afraid of hard work, Sir," the stubborn set of that handsome jaw erased the smile, leaving only youth and steel-grey eyes. "I told you, I'll do whatever it takes." Squaring his shoulders, he'd raised an eyebrow. "I assume you have cleaning supplies?"_ )

 

Presently, Jack gazed over the dirty apartment and felt that same set in his own jaw. There it went again, that flicker-flutter of almost-hope in heart he'd regrown. Turning, Jack saw that Mr. Yu had only just reached the end of the hallway. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he called out to the landlord.

"Mr. Yu! Do you have any cleaning supplies?" 

The old man turned, and Jack caught a brief flash of teeth that might have been a smile. "In the closet down the hall," he called back. He moved to open the door to the stairwell, then seemed to think of something else.

"Mr. Harkness?" Jack turned fully, to show he was listening. Running a hand through his thinning hair, Mr. Yu hesitated. Finally, he said, "You'd better be ready to leave here in ten months. They'll knock this place down and pave it over. This time next year, you won't even be able to tell we were here."

Jack nodded, feeling each moment as if it were acid dripping between his fingers. "I understand, Mr. Yu," he said, and he meant something else entirely.

* * * * * *

Grabbing hold of the minutiae involved in preparing for the evening, Jack buried himself in those details. It was soothing to be smothered in such a way; he focused on trivial goals, feeling the clock at his back, bending himself in mind and body. Shrugging off his coat and braces, Jack took soap and water from the ancient supply closet, getting down on his hands and knees to scrub the linoleum. The working of his muscles was smooth and mindless, narrowing his focus to the simple expanse of the floor. The walls of the apartment looked as though they'd once been blue and, with the floor clean, some of the color seemed to come back to them. The Captain hauled the abandoned rocking chair out into the hall, considering simply depositing it in another empty room. He found himself instead scrubbing the chair as well, chipping away the evidence of an aborted attempt to paint the wicker red. When it was clean, he carried it back inside, situating it near the widow with a strange sense of satisfaction.

 

He made several trips out, watching as the walkways of the other two buildings began to slowly populate with questioning faces. There weren't many, but the remaining residents of Hua She Street 10 were indeed curious about the new addition. A few more women of various ages came out with their laundry, hanging sheets and pillowslips despite a sky which increasingly threatened rain. Two old men brought their chairs outside, watching Jack while they chewed on sunflower seeds. On one occasion, Jack returned to find a row of children's faces staring solemnly down at him from a third floor walkway, arranged side-by-side like a row of delirious Russian stacking dolls. About a dozen children total, boys and girls no older than ten, eyes tracking Jack as they stood on their tiptoes or stuck fingers in their mouths. A strange, awful spike of feeling pressed like a thorn behind Jack's ribs at the sight of them; he gritted his back teeth and pretended to check the sky for rain.

 

There were children out in the city too, of course. The taxi passed several schools with vacant rooms and silent swings, but there were lines of parents standing outside the health clinics, keeping a light grip on small, restless shoulders. In the shopping district, Jack kept his hands in his pockets and did not look at how tightly the mothers clasped tiny fingers in their own. These women watched their children with close, fretful eyes, turning to call out precious names if they slipped for even a moment out of sight, but Jack would not let himself see. Instead, he focused procuring the sparse furnishings he would need-- a refrigerator, a bed, workbench, a small television set. He had each delivered to Number 10, tipping heavily to compensate for the flights of stairs and broken elevator. The delivery men left their own dust and debris on the floor, which Jack cleaned again because the hours were not passing fast enough. It was summer, and the sun lingered hatefully over the horizon while Jack paced like a caged animal. He brought his luggage inside the apartment, inventing more tasks. The rucksack went on the workbench, along with the remains of his wrist-strap. There would be plenty of time to work on repairing it-- the damage from the bomb would be easy compared with the Doctor's meddling. The maroon steamer trunk was his as well, battered by time but completely unscathed by this latest variation on Volcano Day. He'd moved it to Ianto's flat scarcely two weeks before, grinning as the young man ran admiring fingers over the finely wrought leather and metal. 

 

_("Very nice," Ianto had remarked when Jack appeared on his doorstep with the trunk. Those slim hands caressed the lid, the worn brass lock. "They don't make them like this anymore."_

_"Approximately 1904," Jack had replied. Lascivious, to cover his nerves, "There's nothing like good craftsmanship."_

_Shaking his head, Ianto had raised an expressive eyebrow, "Did you decide to bring over some skeletons to keep mine company?"_

_"Clothes," Jack assured him, setting the trunk down in the front hall. "Gwen keeps telling me I smell like sex when I show up to work dressed the same as the day before." He'd grabbed Ianto's wrists, pulling the admiring hands away from the trunk and placing them on his own hips. "Care to grope something else that's aged well?"_

_"Gwen has an overly active fantasy life." Stormy blue eyes rolling skyward, Ianto had never the less indulged him. Hands roamed over his back, his arse; one grasped the back of Jack's neck when he'd cupped the Welshman's face and sucked on his tongue. "That's good." Vague and breathless, Ianto swayed against Jack like they were dancing. "She's right, though." One of those almost daring little smirks crept out, "Hygiene is important." He'd glanced briefly down at the trunk, before Jack tilted his chin and kissed him again. "Keep it here."_

_Jack had sighed into the kiss; a sigh of pleasure, but also one of relief._

_Ten days later, he'd told Ianto he hated the word 'couple'.)_

 

There *were* clothes in the trunk-- but the antique piece of luggage also contained a false bottom, saving just a few of Jack's things from the blast that destroyed the Hub. Not much, but every item was heavy with memory, and Jack left them were they were. Undisturbed bones. He situated the trunk under the window, and busied himself with the final piece. The functional black suitcase, with all its zippered pockets, belonged to Ianto. Jack removed two suits from their plastic protectors, hanging them in the closet and frowning when they smelled more of leather and travel than the man who'd worn them. There were three dress shirts-- purple, crimson, blue-- that Jack held close for a moment, breathing in traces of something that might only have been sense memory. He hung those as well, along with their ties, and removed a carefully wrapped bundle of Ianto's personal possessions from the bottom of the bag. He'd taken only a few things, and Jack had no way of knowing if he'd guessed right as to their value to the younger man. The stopwatch was gone-- buried with Myfanwy and the endless shelves of former Torchwood employees. He thought of them all down there; the broken time piece, the sweet-toothed ptredon, all those bodies who-- friend or foe, good ending or bad-- should have been left with some semblance of peace.  
He put the bundle on the high shelf, out of harms way. 

 

The bathroom was by far the area in the most need of attention, and Jack saved it for last. For a another merciful hour or so, his mind emptied. Still, the clock's red numbers stared at him remorselessly when he emerged, wiping the sweat from his brow. Six in the evening; the glazed apartment windows were lit a late-sun amber that spilled onto the kitchen counter. There the cooler sat with an almost obnoxious mundanity. The box itself was white, the lid green, and the peeling red brand sticker looked like the wink of a snake's knowing eye. Without realizing it, Jack crossed the room to stand before it; he put his hands on it and felt where the latch held it closed. He thought of Ianto's free hand, resting over his heart while the young man thrust into him from behind-- how sometimes he'd been certain those Welsh vowels were counting heartbeats instead of stopwatch seconds. The feel of Ianto's pulse against his back; how they'd turned up the radio at his flat so the neighbors wouldn't complain about shouting, only to be bombarded with truly horrible music. Ianto's honest, uninhibited laughter had felt so erotic, washing against Jack from within and without. 

 

Sweetheart, people said.

_(Ianto disliked pet names-- he'd insisted that nothing was short for 'Ianto' and was known to bite if Jack even attempted 'Yan'.)_

In Chinese, it was _xingan_. 'My heart and my liver'. Vital organs; an intimate implication.

_('Just promise me , if you're hearing this, that when you come 'round -- and you're going to, Jack, you're going to come out of this-- just... promise me you'll never bring up anything I say to you now. How's that? We got a deal?' That presence by his bedside, an unobtrusive hand on his. A tether, more essential than the respirator or monitors, even as the young man in question disregarded his own worth.)_

On Boeshane, it had been _tsazho_. 'Bound one'. The red cord tied the spirit to the body, but it also linked souls together. Red lines on the palm, lines of destiny.

_("Why is it red, Papa?" asked the boy whose name we do not speak. He sat looking up at the strong jaw and fierce blue eyes that were his own inheritance. This broad-shouldered man with a mathematician's mind and an idealist's heart. Mother and Ahmah looked on, smiling, holding hands._  
_"Red is the color you see when you bleed, isn't it?" A nod from the boy, who rested his chin on Papa's knee. "Red is the color of your honest feelings.")_

In Welsh, of course, it was _Cariad._

_(I heard you whisper that word, when you thought I was asleep. I felt it in my bones as your lips moved, close to my ear. But we had a deal, didn't we? And for once, liar that I am, I actually kept my word.)_

 

The urge was as sudden as it was overwhelming. It rushed over Jack and almost moved his hands before he could think. He would open the cooler, he would look at the thing Lan Wei had carved out of him with all her sloppy, merciless hatred. Would it still be beating? Did it even exist? There were those-- Ianto had been among them, once upon a time-- that would make a case Jack had no such organ, literal or metaphorical, to be pilfered. He'd look at the blood-slicked matter packed in ice; he'd flip open his new mobile and take a picture of it, maybe. Send it to Martha, or to Gwen. The Doctor, perhaps. _Look here_ , he would add, _I have proof! It was real and it felt, even if I never said the words._

"No!" Jack withdrew his hands as if burned, pressing his palms against his temples instead. What he hoped to accomplish by doing so, he didn't know. It wasn't as if one could hold the remaining sanity inside, like a vessel that had sprung a leak. For the first time, he thought past the evening and his macabre appointment with Lan Wei. Failure or success yawned before him, each pregnant with terrible possibilities. 

_If this doesn't work, I may go insane,_ he realized, with a dim sort of surprise.  
_Well, it's hardly a far trip!_ John Hart's voice murmured insidiously, having been in residence so long it was only part of the scenery. _You've broken the rules, Jack-my-boy. I should say you're crazy! We used to mock this sort of thing, don't you remember? We used to sit in the smoking common, with Zheli of the cranberry-colored breasts and Etan, who gave such great head. We'd toss back hyper-vodkas and laugh about the urban legends, the tall tales. Because, we said, surely no one was ever really that stupid. Those were only stories, and we all knew the rules--_

 

"Sexual contact is commonplace and, at times, even necessary when handling local indigenous persons. All Time Agents shall take appropriate precautions in terms of medical, reproductive, and psychic safety in order to maintain the integrity of a given mission." It took Jack a long moment to realize that he'd spoken-- that he had, in fact, recited verbatim part of the Temporal Code he'd memorized over a thousand years before. It was like a final shock of cold water, and he stepped away from the cooler completely, unable to believe it had sprung to his lips so readily, as if it had been carved along his insides. He thought, perhaps, if he stood with his hands behind his back and his feet at parade rest, he might be able to recite the whole thing. Now, and ten centuries from this moment-- 6:07 pm on July 14th, 2009. 

_("A thousand years time, you won't even remember my name.")_

"I will," Jack said softly. So many memories, packed and shoved and stacked in his brain cells. Too much data, and only so much room. If anything could kill him, anything at all, would that be it? 

 

Crossing the room, Jack shrugged on his coat and grabbed the key, shoving it in his pocket along with his wallet and mobile. The sun sank by inches, refusing to touch against western skyline just yet. He would go for a walk, burn off some energy, do something besides sit here and be taunted by rules and regulations written by people who did not yet exist and who-- no matter the tense-- where not capable of understanding . 

Locking the door, he thought, _This has to work, because I can't live like this for the rest of forever_.

* * * * * *

The thrum of the city became almost tangible once Jack turned off Hua She Street. He walked with his hands in his pockets, watching the hustle of salary men and day laborers, the constant jockeying of cabbies and the calls of street-stall hustlers. This was humanity, post-465, five days of terror condensed into newspaper headlines and evening broadcast tickers. Jack couldn't decide whether to feel relieved or resentful, so he settled on nothing at all. He stopped in front of a wide bar window and watched a UNIT official waffle helplessly on the big-screen TV. Lan Wei had not been lying about the global anger directed at Great Britain-- the low guttural of Chinese cursing wafted out of the bar along with the smell of cigarettes and beer, a ground level counterpoint to the newsman's harsh assessment of the speech.

 

Further down the street, Jack encountered a group of high school girls loitering outside an arcade. They were giggling, leaning over to inspect each other's brightly colored cell phones, sneaking quick glances at the tall American as he passed. The older ones, the Captain discovered, didn't bother him as much as the young children. He was even able to raise an eyebrow at the little gaggle-- which caused a flurry of hair-twirling and skirt-twitching. Ignoring them, Jack instead found his gaze riveted on a bit of fresh yellow graffiti in an alley. In hasty, simplified Chinese, the artist had scribbled the characters, 'England Eats Children'. The opposite alley wall had another piece of advice-- 'All Adults Are Liars'. So absorbed was he in his study that Jack at first did not register the movement low and to the corner of his eye. 

 

When he did turn, he found himself staring at a young girl, no more than ten years old. She was coming from the same direction he had been, attempting to edge around him in the manner of children carefully instructed not to talk to strangers. It helped not at all that she was female-- the bolt of pain, like the lowest of blows, lingered in his gut all the same. Her eyes were dark and solemn; her hair hung in long wisps around her serious face. There was nothing about her to remind him of his Alice, but the twisting cramp of memory was there all the same. Dusky skin and almond shaped eyes, yes, but she had an air of responsibility like Alice, who had always asked questions when the time wasn't right. Except, the time would never be right-- and that's where it was, that Catch-22. This little girl stared up at Jack the same way, as if to ask, 'You wanna tell me why you won't move, Mister?' She wore a white sundress with little strawberries printed on it, and she carried her little red plastic purse slung over her shoulder in a clear copy of Mom. 

' _Alice's was white,_ ' Jack remembered. He could see her very clearly, ten years old and posed for an Easter portrait in one of those timeless little-girl dresses. The frock was blue, and the white purse had a flower that was blue too. She'd held it daintily, as if to say, 'When I am a lady, I shall carry it like this, because Mum showed me how.'

 

Jack all but rushed into the nearest store, just to be rid of that little girl and her silent gaze. It wasn't panic--

_(stephen screaming, bleeding; alice covered tears and blood and yes, Lucia was right, you finally did kill them all)_

at least, he told himself it wasn't-- but it lodged hard in his throat never the less. The girl watched him go and, after a moment of staring curiously at the spot he'd occupied, she continued down along the street and disappeared. Jack turned from the window to discover he was in a noodle shop. The patrons were absorbed in their food, and the smell of noodle rolls and rice porridge wound around him. 

This time, the pain in his stomach was purely physical.

* * * * * * 

The clouds lingered heavily when Jack returned to the apartment, but the sky peaked out from behind them with the orange of heated metal. Finally, the sun was setting, and Jack felt some of his restlessness ease. Since the workbench was uncomfortable, and he couldn't quite bring himself to sit on the bed, Jack took a seat in the itinerant rocking chair. The sky shifted to dark ruby, and then a nearly-black amethyst. Almost absently, Jack let the chair rock a little on its runners, and the noodles betrayed him. With that instinctive, animal necessity of hunger satisfied, he felt lethargy begin to steal into his bones. It was dim, but it was there--- days upon unending days weighed against him. Death was not sleep; the two could never be confused, and his body sang that truth in every nerve, artery, and tendon. Before he knew it, he'd closed his eyes.

 

He woke-- or thought he woke-- to find the room etched in strange yellow shadows. There was a gasp in his throat, the kind he used to have when coming back from the dead. He looked around for the clock, desperate to confirm he had not missed that one all-important delivery, but couldn't find it anywhere. The room sprawled beyond its natural borders, it seemed like he had to search every inch of it for the time piece, which would not present itself. The bathroom door was open just a crack-- red light spilled through it, like the dim illumination of the Hub in complete lock down. Knowing better but unable to help himself, Jack pushed it open, unsurprised when the light switch refused to respond. There was a woman in the bathtub, partly obscured by the curtain that allowed it to double as a shower. She was lying, soaking, one dark walnut-toned hand dangling over the ledge. 

_It's Martha,_ he thought, and for some reason, that made perfect sense. It had to be Martha-- the strange shadow of her head was just that knot women made when they wanted to keep their hair from getting wet.

"Jack," said husky woman's voice, laced with the buzz of dying bees. It wasn't Martha at all-- it was Lisa Hallet, and as she turned towards him Jack could see the where the dull chrome of her cyberman's helmet had cracked to reveal a quivering human brain. "Once you threatened to shoot him for the very same crime." Her eyes were clinical and dead, her lips moved mechanically, and Jack was suddenly sure she wasn't soaking in water, but in her own blood. "It's just the same," she accused him, lifting a crimson-stained finger. "Then you held him, you kissed him back to life in a pool of sewer runoff and _bits of my skin_!"

 

"You're not real," Jack said, backing away regardless. 

"Does that matter?" Lisa raised an eyebrow in a movement clearly picked up from her boyfriend. "Does it matter if I'm real, if I speak the truth?"

"I didn't understand!" the Captain told her. His back was against the door, which refused to open. "It had been so long since I'd really _felt_ that much..."

"You're a thief," the cyberwoman said venomously. "You couldn't even guard the precious thing you stole." Slowly, Jack shook his head in denial, letting the back of his skull bang against the door. On the other side, he thought he could hear Suzie Costello screaming at Owen, the echo of a long-ago argument.

"We have rules for a reason, g-ddamn it!" said Suzie, the sane Suzie who had never known the Glove. "We have rules for a reason!"

 

And, suddenly, like the skip in a record, Jack was back in the rocking chair. There came a touch on his knee that almost made him jump; he looked down and saw Rose leaning against him like a sleepy child. Her sable-on-blond hair hung just below her shoulders, and she was even wearing that fitted pink hoodie she'd favored in the days of old. His Rosie, little sister and partner in crime. Reaching down, he took her hands in his, and found that she was wearing Ahmah's many silver bangle bracelets on her arms. 

"Oh, Jack," Rose said, looking at him with big, dark eyes. She brushed his hair away from his face, and those same brown eyes he knew were suddenly lit with gold. "Jack, sometimes we do terrible things to the people we love." Finally, finally it came to Jack that he was dreaming-- he felt the certainty and weight of it because he knew the Doctor would never, ever tell Rose what she had done. Her borrowed bracelets jingled as she cupped Jack's face in her hands. "But I know," she told him. "In my heart of hearts, I know what I did." 

"I can't stop myself, Rose," he surprised himself by saying. She stood and embraced him, let him cry against her breast. Somewhere, distantly, Suzie was still yelling, but Rose smelled like flowery shampoo and that expensive perfume she wore when the Doctor told them to dress up. "I know better," Jack confessed, "but I'm going to do it all the same."

She was gone then, dissolving in his hands. A thousand, tiny sparks of gold that he couldn't put his arms around. Jack stared helplessly as they scattered like fireflies-- he heard a thump and the sound of dragging metal from behind the bathroom door.

_It's Lisa._ He could easily envision her, crawling on all fours, cogs and nerves exposed. Impossibly, the door opened outward, he saw fingers that were part silver and part flesh and---

* * * * * *

Jack woke to the real world, gasping the same gasp from his dream. He was still in the rocking chair, but the clock was right were it should be and the bathroom door was open. He stood, rubbing at his eyes, filled with the sudden horrible certainty that he'd slept through the very moment he'd been waiting for. What would they do with that invaluable cargo if he wasn't there to receive it? But no, when his eyes focused he could see he still had fifteen minutes to wait. He went into the bathroom and-- after staring into the empty bathtub for a long moment-- splashed water on his face. The lingering nightmare seemed to hover in the air, an ill portent.

 

Eight o'clock came with a knock on the door. Jack answered it, and allowed the two young delivery men to lift their burden inside. The crate itself was too long to be suggestive of a coffin; the young men wore dark glasses and tattoos of allegiance, and they asked no questions. It felt almost anticlimactic-- Jack paid them for their trouble, though he'd already paid their boss. No more than a few clipped sentences were exchanged before they shuffled off, pocketing the money with quick, practiced twists of the wrist. 

 

Jack closed and locked the door. He drew the curtains, though the windows were glazed and he was on the top floor. The box was marked 'fragile' in Chinese-- _cui_ , written with the characters for 'flesh' and 'danger' combined. Carefully, he pried open the lid of the crate and set it against the wall. Inside, the sleek black tube of Ianto's preservation casket rested amongst the protective packaging. It was several inches longer than a coffin would be, the extra length housing the pilfered alien technology that preserved the body perfectly. Jack could see his own reflection in the dark casing. Slowly, gently, he drew his hands along its surface. His fingers traced the latches, though he made no move to undo them. That would have to wait for Lan Wei. He was sure now, very sure, that John Hart would laugh if the other man could see him, but he was equally sure he didn't care. All those rules, those stipulations, carefully outlined and memorized until they came easily even after a thousand years. 

 

_Can I tell you a secret, Ianto?_ Jack thought, dropping his mental shields even though it meant feeling the aching absence of the other man. Ianto had never taken any of the Torchwood PSI tests-- had, in fact, always somehow been distracted or detained from doing so by a convenient emergency. All the same, Jack had let slip once or twice, brushing against something. In the sweaty, cooling afterglow, in those predawn hours when he woke to find Ianto curled against his back, he'd bent the rules and very carefully called out with that mental song. The resonating chords he'd found in return, faint though they were, always sent a deep feeling of satisfaction seeping into every pour.  
_I'll tell you now, because I believe you're coming back to me. We won't talk about this, though, when you come back. Do we have a deal? Good._ He caressed the lid, lay his cheek against the cold, unyielding surface. 

 

_We had a Temporal Code, Ianto. It was reams and reams of data-strip long. You couldn't graduate until you'd memorized the whole thing, committed it to heart. It covered everything you could ever dream of, because the Agency had very clear agendas regarding the future, and the past. But there was one rule that wasn't on the books. It wasn't written down, you understand? It was considered so simple, so devastatingly obvious that-- in an era were everything was spelled out to the smallest detail-- no one ever spoke it aloud. We whispered about it in the student lounges. To tell you the truth, we laughed. We drank, we leaned close when it got so late it was early, and we told the stories. Urban legends. Myths. No one could actually cite a case where it had happened. If it had happened-- and I believe now that it must have-- the Agency erased it so completely that all parties involved ceased to exist._

_Would you like to know that tacit rule? People didn't really worry about it, in my day and age. It was so passé. I was born on rim-world outpost, Ianto. I learned early on never to tell any one that my parents-- Papa, Mother, and Ahmah-- had a permanent marriage contract. I'd have been laughed at, do you understand? It was considered quaint, even... primitive._  
_It's very simple: far more simple than never keeping all your assets in one place, even simpler than traveling light and keeping the lies short._

_The unspoken directive was, **Do Not Love**. _

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [+] Some dialogue taken from the BBC Torchwood Audio Play "The Dead Line". Specifically, Ianto's monologue. ^_~ 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read my story! If I could bother you a bit more to comment or kudos, I would be so grateful. It makes me do a little-chair dance which, while scary, is nothing to a certain Dalek conga-line some may remember. ;-)


	6. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say, save that I start a new job today (or rather, take a new position in a different department). I'm nervous as hell, but managed to channel that into some accelerated clean up for this. Luckily, my company does not employ Torchwood interview methodologies. ^_~

There was a knock on the door of Apartment 809. Just one-- light and barely discernible, but Jack Harkness was so keyed up he felt as though it vibrated through the marrow in his bones. 

 

Scrubbed clean and divested of its cobwebs, the room had not only regained some of its color-- it had also acquired a quality of waiting. A texture of potential that was almost tangible, the same way the air outside swelled with the promise of rain. It had only served to make Jack more restless as the clock ticked on past eight. He had straightened the plain navy comforter, finally sitting at on the end of the new bed. It was sturdy, simple oak, the same as the workbench against the opposite wall. In the kitchen, the new refrigerator hummed in quiet, vacant contemplation, a low counterpoint to the creaking of the ancient pipes. In the center of the room, the crate sat open, seemingly mundane until you stood over it and saw the strange, polished casket inside. Breathing in and out slowly, Jack had felt the _thinness_ of reality, like a border you weren't aware of until you brushed against it. That same jarring feel had been a part of life on the Rift. That blind, third eye sensed the difference, so that one could almost search out Rift fluctuations in Cardiff by gut as well as scientific instrumentation. Part of him had clamored to cross the room, to put his hand on the cool, unyielding black surface and _know_ that Ianto was inside. From where he'd been sitting, the crate looked almost empty, as if it could be filled with anything; as if it were some bizarre escape hatch that was really a trap.

_That's what this is,_ Jack, the voice of the Doctor spoke in distant horizons of his mind. His Doctor, all blue eyes and big grin, who'd never bent his Northern accent to that particular pronunciation of 'wrong'. _Don't you feel the threads tightening, like the shift and shuttle of a loom?_ He did, the sensation tickled like the sweat, nightmare-fresh, drying on the back of his neck. For a moment, he thought he could almost summon the will to care. It was there, a brief flash of pain in necrotic tissue-- then the knock came, and the thought faded as the sound itself. Jack got up, and went to answer the door.

 

Lan Wei stood in the open walkway, surrounded by heavy air that refused to cool even after the sun had set. She wore a short black _qaipo_ over a pair of dark pants, and her long hair was twisted back with a single lacquer comb. Devoid of bright colors and tinkling plastic jewelry, her smooth, youthful face took on dimensions of terrible beauty-- all the more discomforting because the eye was unable to place her in the context of time. 

" _Fun yihng_ ," Jack murmured, holding the door and gesturing for Wei to pass. She stepped through the threshold quickly, bringing with her an old valise and the smell of her funeral-incense flowers. Without speaking, she helped herself to his workbench, pulling forth jars and paper packets seemingly without end. Silently, Jack watched her shuffle about in her low, sturdy sandals. _No clunky neon heels tonight_ , he thought, not really aware of his own internal hysteria. _Resurrections require sensible shoes._ The sound of glass on wood, of dry herbs rustling, seemed unbearably loud, but she continued arranging things to her satisfaction, shoulders held tight. Finally, Jack turned, twisting the locks and bolts on the door. Lan Wei was facing towards him again when he finished, palms flush atop the bench as she leaned against it. He held her dark gaze, recognizing that look of resentful hauteur from so long ago. All she needed was an ivory fan, and she could have been greeting himself and Mrs Holroyd in the Huang mansion's spacious Western parlor. 

 

"There is no need to be polite," she said, the Chinese syllables stiff. Flicking a gaze briefly towards the crate, she pursed her lips. Without the patina of girlish pink, they made a brown-red line, like a deep cut that wouldn't heal. "I am here, and you are here, and there is nothing that can be done about that." Unconcerned, he waited her out, ignoring the prickle of nausea that whispered about Time running in endless circles. "I keep my bargains," Wei crossed her arms over her small, high breasts. "But I want from you one more concession."

"Is that so?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow. His hands hung at his sides-- all he was truly aware of was the beat of his heart and the distance between himself and the crate. Wei's use of the word 'concession', as if they were negotiating some sort of ceasefire, hung in the air with her stench. Suddenly, he had the horrible image of opening the preservation casket, only to have her smash the delicate alien machinery, cutting her tiny fists on the satisfaction of revenge. He held himself back from shaking the vision away, if only because she would misinterpret the gesture. "What else do you want, Lan Wei?"

"You say you will not bother me if I find Ahn Mei again. I want that." Her eyes closed briefly as the word 'want' passed her lips, a breathless little utterance. "But maybe that will not happen. Time here is not the same as it is there." She waved a limp-wristed hand, as if such a gesture could indicate the horrible, endless intimacy of the Void. "Already, my special tricks do not work so well anymore." That same hand came up to touch her own cheek, as if she was aware of some flaw no one else could see. "Someday, I will stop. Always beautiful on the outside, most important, while I'm breathing. But inside, the rot is starting. I feel it."

"I can't help you with that," Jack said, even as his inner eye presented another possibility. He'd been gone completely, when she'd slaughtered him in her apartment. Had she bent over his prone form, lifting a crimson-stained finger to her lips like a child liking away icing? 

 

"I don't want your help!" Lan Wei spat, banishing the picture herself this time. "I am not ashamed to meet Yanlou Wang in the courts of Hell, when the time comes. I only made use of what was available." That terrible smile fluttered like a sick butterfly on her face. "A woman does what she must!" 

Jack gave a little huff of laughter that was really only relief. "Then what do you want?"

"To take an apprentice, as I was taken once." A regal tilt of the chin, daring. The Captain breathed in through his nose despite the smell, honestly flummoxed. He had considered very carefully what sort of enticements would appeal to Wei before he'd shown up at her door-- he had, in fact, considered the deck almost certainly stacked against her venomous hate. This was something that had never even crossed his mind.

 

_And if it had?_ John Hart's voice fairly oozed, the mental avatar of his own cynicism. _Let's be honest, lover. Will you tell her 'no' now, when you're so close? Is it in you to care about the little girl out there now, somewhere, waiting for the taint of Lan Wei's wisdom? Hell, she probably would have been one of the ten percent, away. What was that word Forbisher used? Negligible! Nice, official word, that._

 

"Someone had to teach you what to do," Jack said, shaking his head at himself. For just a moment, he tried to picture the woman before him as she would have been long ago; alive, and truly human. A peasant girl-- the unbound feet gave away that much-- standing ankle deep in a rice paddy, tilting her young face into the wind. As unsuspecting as the boy who had raced, laughing at his speed and the feel of the sand, along the beaches of Boeshane. 

Lan Wei rolled her eyes at him. "Of course I had a teacher."

 

"Fine, then," the Captain brushed past her, coming to stand by the crate once more. His hands itched, and he placed them on the casket's curved lid. "Have what you will."

_(Pay, and pay, and keep on paying. Always in blood, always with other people's lives. Up, over the trench, boys! But the bullets couldn't even touch you; the Daleks couldn't exterminate you; Abbadon couldn't keep you in his grasp. And somewhere, spinning at the edge of entropy, there lies a Utopia of twisted human remains, waiting to welcome you to the End.)_

"Done, and done," Wei said in English, and actually extended her hand. They shook, and her touch was cool, smoothly reptilian in his brief grasp. As if on some strange cue, they both came to stand before the crate.  
She glanced meaningfully at the latches. "Shall we begin?"

 

* * *

 

Six blocks away from Hua She Street, someone else had been watching the sun set with a careful eye. Now, amidst the illumination of the streetlights and neon signs, a tiny figure shifted restlessly, ignored by the adults that moved around him in the still busy summer evening. Sun Jun Shuang was seven years old, and he stood near the yawning entrance of an underpass as if it were a monster's den. He was small for his age; slight, with a head of fine black hair that ended just below his ears. Dressed in his soccer uniform, book-bag slung over one shoulder, he stood several feet away from where the sidewalk led into the tunnel, and shivered. The summer air was warm, and he hadn't worked up much of a sweat during practice, but Shuang was very afraid. He'd worried his bottom lip nearly bloody, staring down towards the opposite end of the tunnel, and now he was sure he was going to have to make a choice. The underpass whispered to him, echoes of old screams like the grinding of some distant but terrible engine. He'd watched several adults go in and come out, but that didn't matter at all. They were undisturbed by the tunnel the same way blind people are undisturbed by the brilliant flash of a strobe light. They couldn't _see_. 

 

Sighing, Shuang scrubbed a hand over his face in an unconscious imitation of his father. It was getting late, and Baba would be awake soon. Going through the tunnel was the quickest way to get back home, a straight line from the practice park to the building at Hua She Street Number 10. The only way to avoid the underpass was to go back the way he'd come, around the park and back towards the St. Andrew's Elementary. From there, he'd take the footbridge-- which went over the roadway instead of under it-- and walk home from the north. By the time he returned to the tiny apartment he shared with his father, Baba would most certainly be up, shaving and preparing for his third shift rotation. Shuang could very clearly envision the look on Baba's face if he did this. It would be that hurt, sad and worried look that pinched the big features, making a grimace. Shaking his head, Baba would button his uniform, put on his gun and badge, all the while wondering aloud what it would take for his son to grow up and act like a man.  
_It's a tunnel, boy!_ He'd say, cuffing his son-- gently, but with intent-- on the head. _What's the matter with you? You are too old to be afraid of the dark!_

 

Shuang wasn't afraid of the dark. There were, in fact, plenty of tunnels that didn't bother him at all, and he didn't need a nightlight for when Baba locked up and left him to sleep while he worked. It was _this_ tunnel-- this tunnel was bad. The shadows liked to jump and move, there were cold dead fingers that touched your face but didn't have any hands. It smelled like urine and strangers with candy, like the breath of the boogeyman as he crouched on your stomach while you slept. Trying not to think about it, Shuang took a step towards the entrance, telling himself it would be okay. 

_Hey, hey, boy. Pretty boy. C'mere, sweet meat, here comes the boy._

Something white and not-real flashed in front of Shuang's eyes, and he jumped back instantly. These things were awful-- they were old, and they didn't understand that they were dead. He was afraid he would go into the tunnel and not come out. He was more afraid of that than anything. Even the past few days, filled with his father's panicked face and the television flickering endless loops of other children speaking in dull unison, had not inspired this sort of dread. 

 

Shuang supposed he must have been 'possessed' like the other children-- the despair and anger that radiated off the adults around him certainly said as much-- but he had no memory of it. The only time it had been real was when Baba had picked him up and hugged him hard, making an almost-crying sound, like he had at Mama's funeral. Shuang's concern then had not been for himself; it had been for big, strong Baba, who was not supposed to make such noises. Aside from that, he'd mostly felt curious and then a little bit bored with the whole situation. It certainly wasn't fun to sit in the stuffy apartment all day while Baba watched every move like he was afraid you were going to get sick. Going to the clinic had been even less appealing, and school had been canceled. Everything had stopped-- work, class, soccer practice, Math Club, going out to play-- and there hadn't even been any real aliens that he'd gotten to see.

 

Resigned to a grumbled lecture from Baba, Shuang was just about to turn around when he heard a light, airy voice call out to him. He whirled around, almost tripping, a bright smile animating his serious little face.

"Shuang! Hey, Shuang!" the voice called. Down through the mirk and whispers of the tunnel, the boy could see another small figure, standing in a pool of illumination from the streetlight. 

"Ming!" He called back, cupping his hand to his mouth. "What took you so long?"

Ming spread her hands, a frown marring her childishly pretty face. "I'm very late and very sorry, Shuang!"

"Oh-kay, oh-kay," he said, too relieved to be bothered. 

"Are you ready?" Ming hollered from her end. She looked around, checking for adults, but the sidewalk was empty. Shuang did the same, and finally gave her a thumbs-up.

"On three!" he shouted.

" _Yat_!" Ming almost sang, even as the things in the tunnel began to swirl and stir. " _Yih! Saam!_ "

 

It was horrible in the tunnel-- Shuang ran faster than he ever did at soccer practice, and still the phantom touches of bone and slimy, unidentifiable other foreign sensations pulled at his cheeks and the backs of his legs. He kept his eyes focused on Ming, who was running towards him, hand outstretched as her little red plastic purse thumped against her stomach. She was taller than Shuang by inches and she reached him before the halfway mark, but he didn't care. In the murky terror only they could sense, the two children grabbed hands and pivoted, quickly rushing back the way Ming had come. 

A shape rose, slouched and shambled. _Hey, little girl, little candy girl , eat you all up._

_It hurts, he keeps stabbing me, my eyes!_ Something else that looked like it had once been a woman moved against the tunnel wall, making wet dripping sounds.

_There isn't even anything in my purse!_ That one was like a grimy stain on the concrete; a wriggling, severed arm. 

 

Ming and Shuang hurtled past it all, emerging from the tunnel just as an older man in a suit approached the underpass. They almost barreled into him, dodging at the last moment as they muttered ' _mh goi_ ' and kept their gazes low. The man shot them a look of annoyance, but entered the tunnel with his briefcase, completely unbothered. The children watched him, caught between youthful disgust and awe, as he was picked at, whispered to and oozed upon with no knowledge of the violation. 

"I really hate that," Shuang said as they leaned against the lamppost, trying to catch their breath. His eyes burned for a moment, and he squeezed them shut. "Why should it be that they can't see it? Why does it have to be just you and me?"

For what must have been the thousandth time, the reply came; "I don't know." Ming squeezed the hand he hadn't even realized she was still holding. 

 

Shuang opened his eyes and looked up at her. In the unforgiving light from the high fluorescent bulb, he could see every angle of her moon-round face. Ming smiled, brushing away a lock of hair so black it was almost blue. She was, in moments like this, unspeakably beautiful to him, but he did not quite understand how or why that was. Even now, as his heart pumped and swelled, she was just Ming. Two years his senior, the girl who lived in the building across from his, and his best friend. He knew boys weren't supposed to have girls for best friends-- especially _girly_ girls like Ming, with her sparkly barrettes and red plastic purse-- but there was nothing he could do about that. Adrift, like all children, in a world only halfway understood, Shuang accepted everything simply because he had no control. Baba was grumpy and didn't sleep much since Mama died. 

_(He has nightmares about the white banners from the funeral.)_

Mama herself was gone, and he couldn't visit her grave because they'd had to move here for Baba's work. 

_(He dreams that it was all a dream-- that Mama is still alive and he still goes to his old school where he isn't the littlest one on the soccer team.)_

There were awful things laying around-- not everywhere, but often in ordinary places-- that no one else could see.

_(They were blind! Why had he been born into a world where all the people were blind?)_

 

Once, Mama had been alive, and she had also been able to see these things. He wanted her back desperately

_(he was afraid she was somewhere as a dead-thing)_

but at least he had Ming now.

_(He knows they're going to have to move away someday-- he's heard Baba talking about it. He doesn't know what he'll do without her, either Her, the woman and the girl writ large in the book of his existence. He tries not to think about it. )_

That was just life.

 

As if she could hear how dull and low his thoughts were turning, Ming leaned over and tugged on his ear with her free hand.

"What was school like?" she asked, squeezing his hand one last time before letting go.

"It was fine," Shuang rolled his shoulders. "But all the teachers looked at us funny, like we were going to start doing weird things again."

"The television says the aliens are gone now," Ming said contemplatively. She brushed at her sundress and, as Shuang fell into step with her, they began walking back towards Hua She Street. "Mama had the news on before she went to work." There was a heavy little sigh. "You're lucky you got to go to school today. Mine doesn't start until tomorrow, and it was very boring to be at Ms. Choi's all day." 

"All day," he echoed, grimacing in sympathy. Ming's mother worked during the day, like most people's parents, and usually Ming only had to stay with the babysitter after school. 

"I didn't even get to see any soap operas!" she shook her head sadly. Shuang didn't understand Ming's fascination with Hong Kong soap operas-- especially since nothing ever seemed to happen aside from people crying and girls dressing up-- but he nodded anyway. "Ms. Choi turned on cartoons because there were so many little kids. Why do you get to go to an all boys school that doesn't care about aliens?"

 

"I had to go to the clinic, too!" he protested. "The doctors poked me, and they asked me all kinds of questions. The lines were long and it was hot!"

"Mama took me very early this morning." Ming made a big show of yawning. "The doctors asked me if I remembered anything, and I said no, and then they stuck me with a needle. They asked questions again, then all I got was a dumb root beer lollipop."

Shuang nudged her with an elbow, "I got a cherry one. Wanna trade?"

"Definitely." She winked, before her face suddenly became still. "Shuang... _do_ you remember anything about the aliens?"

Pursing his lips, the younger boy stayed silent for a long time. He remembered weird little bits, like static from a radio. Mostly nasty little goblin whispers of _hungry hungry hungry_ , and a few other flashes of what looked like mist, which he didn't understand. "Not really," he said at last. "I just told the doctors 'no, nothing'."

"I said so, too!" Ming clapped her hands, clearly relieved. She studied the cracked sidewalk for a moment, before she whispered, "Did you tell them anything else?"

"No!" Shuang said very loudly. He stopped walking and grabbed Ming's wrist. "I wouldn't tell the doctors anything about... _that_... not ever! Mama told me never to tell anyone about being able to see, she made me promise." Tugging a little, he got Ming to step close to him, so that they were almost nose to chin. "Ming, I broke my promise to Mama by talking to _you_."

"I know. But I can see too, so now we have to keep the secret together." Absently, Ming lifted a hand to brush a stubborn bit of grass off his shirt. He let go of her wrist. They simply stood there for a moment, united by their terrible difference.

 

"I'm sorry," Ming said at last. "I'm really sorry I was late today, too, but it was hard to get away from Ms. Choi."

"I'm not mad," Shuang said, finding this was true. He could not, in fact, remember ever being mad at Ming for more than a few minutes at a time. She smiled at him again, but this one was her secret smile, the one where she poked out a little bit of her tongue.

"Something exciting did happen today," she said when they started walking again. "You were at school and you missed it."

"Right," Shuang said, rolling his eyes. "What happened? Did someone else move out?"

"No!" Ming fairly skipped in her delight. "Shuang, someone moved _in_!" He looked at her with obvious disbelief, so she leaned close, the way the apartment mothers did when imparting new stories. "He's an American, and he's very strange."

 

* * *

 

The latches were cool under Jack's fingertips. Feeling as though there wasn't a breath or heartbeat left in him, Jack put just the right amount of pressure on the sensitive grooves and was rewarded with a light, sibilant hiss. Like the sound of leaves on cold grave marble, or the tempting whispers of a snake in the garden, it rose with the lid, that smooth movement of technology lightyears ahead of the present. Ianto lay inside, encased in a delicate webbing of glass. The strange, spidery cradle hummed with a faint gold glow-- it cast dustings of color that played across young man's pale, still features like the cruelest of tricks. Lan Wei regarded the casing, its glow, and the asymmetrical engine that powered it with cursory interest, disregarding it just as quickly. Jack stood with one hand fisted at his side, eyes burning with something divorced yet wild. Nails bit into the flesh of his palm, but he could only look at Ianto's face and experience that terrible churning, like the sea so angry it turned green with its storms. The younger man still didn't look like he was sleeping-- he looked quiet and dead, a totem robed of its holy core.

 

"You will tell me about him," Lan Wei said, far off to his side. Her form was only a shadow to him, but her light, powerful voice seemed to pierce the casket's illumination and stab into his brain.

_I can't!_ Jack thought with sudden, visceral panic. He bent with the force of it, leaning against the crate until his forehead was almost touching the glass above Ianto's expressionless face. _I don't have words that will hold this! This can't be talked about, it's eating me up from the inside! I can't piece it together without breaking the syllables with the force of it, don't you see?_

A sick prick of memory came to him-- Gwen's hands on his shoulders, those cloying murmurs of sympathy with all the wrong vowels. She'd said he needed to talk about it, she'd pleaded and cajoled, she'd all but commanded it as she plied him with food and those dark, suffocating eyes. The scent of beans brushed against him, he seemed to remember a bowl of them sitting steaming hot, on his makeshift warehouse desk-- he'd pushed it away in a fit of rage, leaving a shattered mess and pretending it was all an accident. He hadn't been able to talk then, and he couldn't talk now. Screaming would be better, the agonized ululation of those who walked amongst fallen bodies. He straightened up, opening his mouth with no idea what was going to come out, only to feel Wei's delicate hand clamp over his jaw. 

"Stop!" she gripped his face with surprising strength, forced to stand on her tiptoes to reach. Her sharp elbows bore into his chest, not half as painful as her merciless black eyes. "This is the last chance, do you understand? We do this tonight, or not at all." She shoved him away, reached out and traced a finger along one of the casket's thin glass veins. "He wanders now, with just a thin thread to pull together body and soul. It grows more and more weak with each hour, and soon you will have nothing with which to pull him back. Even at this moment, he could be approaching the river that runs in the darkness. Meng Po will be waiting for him."

The Captain's dry tongue moved twice before he was able to speak, "Meng Po?"

Wei's chin lifted in familiar, nasty challenge. "She rules the crossing into new life. You said you don't have my faith, that you do not believe? Meng Po sends souls to their new bodies, after she gives them her blessing-- a drink from the river. To drink is to forget your old life, so you can be born again." The twist of her lips was so spiteful it could not be called a smile. "Would you like that, Jack Harkness? If your boy drinks, you will be gone from him. Banished. Perhaps Kwan Yi has granted this-- her heart is so big, she has mercy even for foreigners."

"That's not going to happen," Jack almost snarled. He took two steps towards her and, though Lan Wei would never be as world-wise or as calculating as the Time Agent before her, she did have excellent survival instincts. Quickly, she put a mortar and pestle in his hands, and his fingers curled around the tools with something like relief. 

"Then we work," Wei said firmly. She opened one of her small jars, emptying the contents into the mortar's deep bowl. The sharp, achingly sweet smell of pomegranate reached Jack's nose, overwhelming Wei's acidic floral. It was surprisingly powerful aroma, and it filled him with a sudden sense of rightness. 

 

_(Vermillion and myrrh; the thick shadows and dark laughter of the den Faith liked to frequent. Its vices changed-- opium, liquor, luxuries persisting through war time rationing, the fluorescence of the manufactured high-- but remained ever as she was. He'd sat with her there, twice. Once, while Owen lay still under Martha's shaking autopsy knife, and another time, long before. She'd turned over the Knight with his face, and then the Lovers. The heavy, medieval watercolors portrayed a young, dark haired man clad in the garb of a squire. The knight's apprentice. One could see only his back, and the hint of an elegant profile, as the warrior-to-be reached up towards a branch heavy with dripping pomegranates. It had not escaped his notice that the card of union held only a solitary figure, but he disregarded the observation quickly none the less. In his mind there had been only one question, resounding long after the oracle asked him to concentrate and cut the cards._

_"Some say say it was a pomegranate, in the Garden of Eden," Faith had murmured in her ancient, girlish soprano. "The knowledge of Good and Evil in each seed."_

_Jack himself had been restless, shifting uncomfortably in the booth. "I don't see what this has to do with my baby girl. I just want to know, is she…"_

_Faith sighed heavily, moving the Lovers to the left side of the spread. The next card was the Two of Cups, upside down. From his odd perspective, Jack could just make out the image of a woman and young boy, each holding a cup that spilled to the ground. "She's not like you." Narrow doll's eyes peered at him, resentful because he wouldn't listen. "No one will ever be like you." She'd tapped the Lovers card again, sliding it towards him, but he was already rising, pulling on his coat._

_"That was all I needed to know."_

_"The body is said to have six hundred and thirteen nerves, the same number as the seeds in a pomegranate." She'd actually tugged on his cuff then and, as always, her touch made him shiver. Holding the card between thumb and forefinger, she'd placed it decisively over Jack's Knight. "This boy, he reaches for the fruit, but he doesn't know. Not yet. The pomegranate is on this card because real love feasts on your heart."_

_"Like cannibalism," Jack had remarked dryly, thinking of his place on the Rift, tied down, waiting for the century to turn a second time._

_"Not that," she'd banished the notion of the Doctor with a shake of her head. Her small fingers had left him then, and he'd spared her only a glance as he left. Desired answer received, he had no need to linger-- he would bring the reassurance to Lucia like an offering of penance. Faith was always right._

_"Perhaps," the girl called after him, "you should have been drawn as the Fool.")_

 

In the sticky yellow apartment light, the pomegranate seeds looked almost garnet, like frozen drops of blood. Jack's mouth watered involuntarily, even as he felt tiny, cold fingers ghost over his heart. 

"It's eating me up from the inside," he repeated in a murmur, surprised by the sound of his own voice speaking. He thought of that card-- the Lovers rendered solitary-- sitting in Faith's deck, shuffled by her all-too-knowing hands. Threads closing in a pattern on the loom; time moving in concentric circles; the drawing of the handsome squire, whose hinted profile was a familiar mystery. 

"Grind those," Wei instructed, unaware of the mirror in Jack's memory. "They say the taste of pomegranate is the taste of human flesh." Her mouth quirked again in that awful smile, but it could no longer stir anger in the Captain. "I do not find that this is so. Still, it makes for an excellent base."

"I'm sure," Harkness replied, carefully watching the seeds as he crushed them. 

Softly, "Tell me how he died."

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GLOSSARY:  
>  _Fun yihng_ \- "Welcome" (from the host)  
>  _Yanlou Wang_ \- the King of Hell  
>  _Yat, Yi, Saam_ \- One, two, three.  
>  _mh goi_ \- I'm sorry (general)  
> [+] Jewish mysticism holds that the pomegranate (or rimmon) has 613 seeds to match the 613 commandments in the Torah. In addition, the 'nerve' connection of the soul to G-d is composed of 613 strands-- 248 from the 'parts of man' and 365 'veins'.  
> [+] The Two of Cups in Tarot is usually interpreted as love and patience working together to solve a conflct. When a card is reversed, the meaning is reversed-- so an upside down Two of Cups is a conflict that isn't solved, usually one inside the family. I've always loved that Faith's deck seems awfully specific to Jack (or maybe shifts to become specific to whomever she's reading for?).  
> [+] Yes, I researched some of this. *is card-carrying nerd*


	7. Chapter Six

_Softly, Wei said, "Tell me how he died."_

 

"Ianto," Jack said, listening to the scrape of bronze pestle again bronze mortar. "His name is Ianto."

"Ee-ahn-tow," Wei frowned, tongue struggling with the exotic sounds. She looked down at him through the glass webbing. "He was young."

"Very young," Jack smiled a little, and it hurt. "I forgot how young, sometimes. He'd seen things, fought battles that would have terrified men twice his age. He held everything so close inside, moved with such assurance and intelligence, that his age was easy to forget." He took a deep breath, never stopping the pressure of his right hand on the pestle. 

 

"It was the 456," Jack continued, forcibly widening his eyes, fighting the images burned in the back of his brain. "They released a toxin when we refused to cooperate. It killed everyone in Thames House. I... I tried to get him to leave, but it was too late. He'd already breathed the air."

"Poison in the air." Dainty fingers plucked the mortar from him. Wei sniffed and stirred the mixture, apparently satisfied with the consistency. She took bright, almost comically red berries from another jar and began mixing them in as well. "Poison in the lungs is a yin death." Jack watched her closely as she added white and purple petals, grinding them in as well. "Ancient Chinese medicine is based on I Ching. Eight elements make up reality. Each of these eight things is either _yin_ or _yang_."

"Dark or light," Jack said, nodding slowly.

"Yes." Wei held up a finger. "But not like in the West, where darkness is bad. This darkness is necessary. A little light in darkness, a little darkness in light." 

 

_(Rose, bathed in light so brilliant it put the stars to shame. He heard her singing in the darkness, the song _was_ the darkness, the inevitable march of Time. It blasted the Daleks to dust, it yanked him back, fixed, into the fabric of the Universe. Ianto, kneeling but unashamed as he faced the barrel of Jack's gun, insisting that Lisa, his Lisa, was still in there, somewhere. Later, broken, pressing a kiss to the cyberwoman's ruined lips, asking her why she'd left him when he'd tried so very hard.)_

 

"You can't have one without the other," the Captain said, more to his memories than to his current company. 

"Exactly." Lan Wei was adding yellow, grassy leaves to the mix, along with something that smelled like cinnamon. Once they had merged with the rest of the dark, almost violet syrup, she reached for Jack's hand. He didn't fight, but allowed her to slice ruthlessly into his left palm, holding it over the bowl. The blood oozed out, a vibrant red that flushed into maroon. "Ianto," Wei used the name as a command, and it was powerful despite her still clumsy pronunciation. "When was he born?"

_Drip._

Breathe out. "August 19th, 1983."

_Drip, drip._

"Morning or evening?"

_Drip._

"Just after midnight." Breathe in.

_Drip._

"Eldest son?"

_Drip, drip._

"Yes."

The flow was slowing. _Drip._

"Right or left handed?"

The pool of blood lay over the rest of the mixture, like oil on water. 

"Right handed."

Wei began to stir, and the colors churned like Jack's stomach. 

"Blood type?"

_Scrape._

"'A' negative." Inhale.

The questions felt like they were burning, little flecks of ember hidden in soot, trying to trip him up.  
"Birth marks?"

Exhale. Don't laugh, don't scream. 

"A little brown spot, on the back of his left thigh."

 

"Good," Lan Wei said, voice almost warm. Jack found there was still some anger in him, tightly wound-- she hadn't truly believed he would know any of those things. He felt tired, and every shadowed corner of the room seemed to jump. Unwillingly, his eyes flickered towards the closed bathroom door.

_("You couldn't even guard the precious thing you stole!")_

"He was my _friend_ ," the Captain said suddenly. Dark, china-doll eyes looked at him expectantly-- he thought of Wei laughing at him in her kitchen, saying something about 'real love'. Why were all these moments stuttering so strangely, jolting him along, refusing to flow? "He was... _tsazhou_." But she didn't know what word, no one would know that word for three thousand years. " _Xingan_ ," he said instead, forcing feeling into the word. His face felt wet. "Do you understand?"

"You think I don't?" A delicate little snort, as she set her tools back on the bench. She put a hand on his shoulder, turning him towards the casket. His skin crawled with her touch, and the almost desolate understanding in her voice. "You and I, we hate each other. But now, like it or not, we are the same."

"I'm not--"

"In this one thing, we _are_." Her voice wavered suddenly. "Do you understand what this is?" A hard yank on his sleeve. "Do you? This is no simple thing. These days, everyone is 'instant' this, 'instant' that. No, it is not the way of this century. This is an older thing. If Ianto was as _xingan_ \-- essential as your heart and your liver-- then you are going to have to work to have him back. You will draw his soul back into his body, slowly. This takes patience, time and care. He will breathe tonight, and his heart will beat when we are finished, but it will be a long time before he opens his eyes and knows your face." 

Jack's lips parted, his voice was a ghost. "I'm not afraid of hard work. Not for him."

"He will only drink from you," Wei insisted, but her eyes were far away. Fixed on long ago, human hurts. "This is more than marriage." The smile was really a grimace, "Marriage is politics. Long ago, it was buy and sell. 'I will give you my daughter for your rich north pasture'. 'When you raise a daughter, you are really raising another man's wife.' They said these things. In the end, a man could say his wife can not give him sons, turn her away. Now days, a woman can say the man does not care for her, divorce him and find another. It means nothing. What I would have done for Ahn Mei.... this thing..." Wei was breathing heavily now, and there was a single, pink-tinged droplet rolling down her white cheek. "This is _mating_. It is..."

_Tsazhou_ , Jack moved his lips silently. Breaking the unspoken rule. Aloud, he said, "Being bound."

"Yes." 

 

Scrubbing at her face like an angry child, Wei turned from him suddenly. She reached into the valise, loading her arms up with stout white candles. With an eerie sense of precision, she began placing them in clusters at each point of the compass, occasionally making a soft, sniffling noise. Jack ignored her, as she had ignored the tears that were still drying on his face. He wasn't sure if that was mercy or understanding, but he supposed it didn't matter. Without warning, she flicked the light switch, and suddenly the only illumination came from candles she was lighting, and the casket's ethereal yellow glow. Jack's eyes blurred a little; the light flickering through the glass seemed almost blasphemously cheerful. It made him think of Cardiff's deep December chill, of Ianto staring up at the Christmas tree near the entrance to the Plass. It had been snowing, and Ianto had been smiling even as he shivered and shoved his hands in his pockets against the chill. That smile had been brilliant, a boyish grin, uncensored because Ianto thought himself alone. Jack remembered standing on the invisible lift, wanting so badly to join the younger man, but loathe to move and break the moment. 

 

Having finished with the candles, Wei slipped back towards the workbench, feet almost feline in their silence. The light from the casket did odd things to her face, casting shadows of blemishes where Jack knew there were none. Looking at her, he felt a sharp stab of pity for whomever came across her body when she finally 'stopped'. The rot she claimed to feel would have her corpse for its kingdom, then; everything she really was would be exposed. Even now, the Captain thought he could see a swath of infection across her exposed skin, like radiation burns. He was glad the apartment did not have any mirrors. 

"Take him out," Wei instructed, unaware of the temporary chip in her polished veneer. 

"Now?" Jack asked, casting an uncertain glance at the woefully small bowl of potion. "You don't really think just _that_ is going to--"

"You're going to tell me how to do my job?" The faint impression of her grinning skull showed behind her frown. 

 

Shaking his head silently, Jack reached down and undid the last catch. Lifting away the final lid was like lifting diamond lace-- the casket's engine hummed once and died, leaving only the flicker of Wei's candles behind. Ever so gently, Jack reached inside, lifting Ianto into his arms. He lie there, still and cold, cradled against his Captain's chest. No stir of breath, no huff of half-insulted laughter, no thrum of pulse in his strong wrists. Forcing himself to keep his grip firm but loose, Jack carried him to the bed. Ianto always preferred the left side, and Jack settled him there carefully, adjusting the pillow quickly when his head began to loll at an odd angle. The young man smelled of antiseptic, of white hospital linen and the metallic seal of alien technology. No natural, emotive whiff of cedar or sugar cane; no evergreen of his favorite after shave. 

 

( _'It's a body, Jack.' The Doctor's voice seemed suddenly very strong. The youthful one, that murmured Rose was alive and then said he couldn't stand to look at a fixed point. 'It's a corpse. Ianto isn't in there anymore. You can handle him as gently as you want, but he isn't going to feel it, because he's gone. He's gone, Jack.'_ )

 

" _No_ ," Jack said, his body jerking in surprise when the word came out in his first language. The soft, guttural slides came back to him easily, so deeply a part of him that he was suddenly sure they were written on each twist of his DNA. He brushed his thumb over the cut on Ianto's right cheek. " _I'm going to bring you back, Ianto. Just you see if I don't_."

Surprised by the unfamiliar tongue, Lan Wei gave him a searching look but, when she spoke, she only said, "Undress him."

 

Jack's stomach rolled, but his fingers began plucking at Ianto's stripped tie. It slid dully away, and he folded it, before reaching for the buttons the black vest. " _I'm sorry, Ianto. This is only for a little while. It's not so bad._ " Vest undone, he started in one the white dress shirt, head bent down, with eyes only for his task. 

_"You're going to be so cross with me when you get back. Worse than all that glaring you did when taking John's weapons on a tea tray, worse than when I came back from the Crucible with soot all over my coat. "_ Hand firmly between Ianto's shoulder blades, Jack lifted him, removing the vest and shirt at the same time. 

" _I know you fuss at me when I do that. I'll fold them separately, I promise._ " Jack kept his word, making a tidy pile of clothing on the nightstand. His hands hovered over Ianto's belt buckle-- he breathed in sharply and felt almost choked by the scent of the candles. It was a heavy citrus scent, laced with finely aged spices. He forced himself to slide the leather through, setting the belt aside as well. Abruptly, he moved to the end of the bed and began removing Ianto's dress shoes. 

_"I know you think I wasn't paying attention, but I saw the way you looked at me after I brought Owen back. He was like a son to me, in a way. Spoiled and rough-nosed, but worth it on the inside."_ There was an honesty in his mother-tongue. It was built into the pitch-sensitive verbs, the differing levels of intimacy and pronunciation in address. It burned, to speak it after so long, like the systematic stripping of the confessional. _"How could I hope for a miracle for him, and not do the same for you? Don't be angry with me, Ianto. When I close my eyes, I can see that look. Like you didn't think you were worth that much to me."_ The shoes and socks were set on the floor, out of the way. Jack forced himself to move back up, to reach for the zip and fasten on Ianto's pants.

" _You'd laugh if you could see me now."_ He was especially careful as he eased the black material past Ianto's hips. " _My hands are shaking. I bet you'd tell me to keep my fetishes to myself."_ Ianto lay there, a thing of marble clad only in dark blue briefs. Jack had run his hands appreciatively over those briefs before they'd left Ianto's flat, on that morning that now seemed a lifetime behind. 

 

_("It's just a body, Jack."_

_And, goddamn it, what the hell do you know? Have either of your two hearts ever really broken, have you ever wanted anything, kept anything for yourself? I saw your face when Martha and I left. You took Rose back, pushed her back behind the barrier. I bet she cried, and still you left her, so you just shut up now.)_

 

"Everything off," Wei said after a long pause. The Captain hissed through his teeth, and once again found his nails curling into the flesh of his palms.

" _I'll make it up to you, Ianto._ " Jack pulled the briefs away, slowly easing them past knees and ankles. " _I know you'd hate this, and I'm sorry._ " Ianto's penis lay limp in its dark nest of curls; the sight of that handsome, lifeless body nude seemed suddenly unutterably horrible to Jack. It was flesh and bone, devoid of animation-- it was only something _shaped_ like Ianto. Like the golem of legend, it had all the things it make a human save that elusive, all-important spark. It was awful, because it dared to look like Ianto when it wasn't; it was beautiful because it could be Ianto again, if only...

" _Do something!_ " he shouted at Wei. She blinked at him, unperturbed but without comprehension, and he forced himself to repeat the words more calmly in Chinese.

"We will." Her face was all smooth beauty again, and also carefully blank. "Where is the cooler?"

"In the kitchen," Jack replied, turning his back on her. He put a hand over his mouth so he wouldn't scream. Time swam and unwound before him; he thought of Ahn Mei, bathed in the light of the bon fire and the full moon. Suddenly, he said, "You let Ahn Mei have a quilt." He'd thought nothing of it at the time, but he could picture it very clearly now. Eggshell white, embroidered with crawling vines and tiny pink blossoms. Ahn Mei had writhed under it, screaming, clawing at herself as her skin seemed to burn.

"Very well then," Wei spat presently, emerging from the kitchen with more force in her steps than necessary. The memory was obvious in her expression, but Jack turned away. Gathering the comforter from where he'd left it folded at the end of the bed, Jack quickly covered Ianto's torso, unaware of his own sigh of relief. A grunt came from over his shoulder. "Leave his feet showing."

 

Jack complied, watching Wei as she dragged the stool away from the workbench. She waved an impatient hand at him, instructing him to take off his shirt and braces. The Captain did so, folding his things beside Ianto's and resisting the urge to pace.

"Lie down next to him." Lan Wei pulled something from her pocket. She dangled it in the low candlelight, and Jack could not find it in himself to be surprised. A thick, red silk cord hung between her fingertips, each sway like the shadow pantomimes of Boeshane. Something rattled in his chest, but it was only the memory of Papa's stories and the sound of a lock finally sliding away home. The click of tumbler and bolt. 

"You'll tie our hands. Bind them." It wasn't a question. Wei nodded in the darkness, coming to sit beside him on the bed. She reached over him, and he endured her fingers on Ianto's wrist, then felt them on his own. The cord pulled tight, just shy of discomfort. The room itself seemed to swell and shudder, the physical walls too small for the sense of possibility. He thought of Billis Manger's dance hall, hovering between past and present, yawning in its disrepair as if to whisper, _I can be, I can, and maybe I will_. The shift of timelines, like something more than gravity, pulling the universe back into its appointed orbit. Lan Wei moved off into the shadows, returning with the mortar and a tea brush. She took the potion and, delicately pinching Ianto's chin, coated the inside of his mouth with it. Pulling the comforter down just a bit, she used the brush again to paint a symbol on his collar bone. "That's not Chinese," Jack remarked quietly.

"Sanskrit," she was whispering now, the stifling atmosphere seemed to demand it. The world seemed drenched in the smell of candles, in rot of Lan Wei's perfume, and the tang of pomegranates like blood. " _Om_ is the sound that preceded creation." She drew the same on Jack's chest, and it didn't tickle-- it _stung_. Again, she was gone, and when she moved back into the circle cast by the candlelight, she was carrying something. It was wrapped in red silk, and very obviously heavy from the effort she exerted. Setting it on the stool, she let the rich crimson fall away. Startled, Jack very nearly sat up on his elbows-- stopping himself only for fear of jostling Ianto.

 

At first glance, Lan Wei's final instrument looked like a box built from latticed mirrors. Finely crafted, obviously expensive, but human none the less. However, as its owner stepped away, Jack watched the box shiver and _pulse._ It was as if the eye slid off it, or away from it, for just a moment, and it _changed_. Breathlessly, he realized it was much like staring at Wei's face without her flashy trappings. The mind could not place it, and thus rebelled. Now, the box seemed to be carved from a single piece of bone; it flushed a coy, pink coral; and then appeared to adopt the hideous consistency of flesh.

"That," Harkness said firmly, "Is not the Tunguska Artifact."

_(Oh, G-d, Ianto. I'm sorry, and I'm not sorry. I don't think even this can stop me, now.)_

"No," Wei said simply. "This, I hid from you that night. This has been mine since my teacher died."

"What is it?" The box shifted again, imperceptibly, turning an odd brown and almost seeming to inhale.

"'What is it?', 'Where did it come from?'" She sing-songed mockingly. "These are a man's questions. It's not important. A woman does not ask these things, because she knows sometimes there are no answers. Why is the world here? Why do only humans speak? Why is there death? Why do we love, and why does that hurt? Ask, ask, ask. You'll never get any answers, only make them up so you'll feel better." Now the box was blue, a silver-touched cobalt that was so deliberate Jack had to close his eyes. 

Keeping them closed, he asked, "So, what is the important question, then?" He heard the shifting of ice, and then a sickly, wet noise like the crashing of some polluted wave. 

"Do not even ask 'What does it do?'." Wei's voice came from surprisingly close by. Opening his eyes, Jack's gaze came to rest first on the box. It looked almost organic again, humming, and his own dead heart sat atop it-- so red in the candlelight that it became black. A whisper, near his ear. "Ask only, 'What can it be used for?'"

 

_(Of course. Suzie and her glove, groping in the Void, uncaring of what she might disturb. Lisa Hallet's body encased in metal, all facts and memories and personal information, but no soul. Toshiko, hair hanging to hide her tears as she put the pendant in Jack's hand. Tommy, the displaced soldier, living the century in weeks as Torchwood pulled him unwillingly through turmoil and culture shift and revolution. The TARDIS, warped beyond recognition, rending the sky until the blackness of entropy bathed humanity and they knew fear.)_

 

"So, what can it--"

"Do you really think I have to answer your questions?" Wei interrupted him. She stood over him, hands behind her back as though a little girl with an eager surprise. "I keep my word, Jack Harkness. But I don't have to tell you my secrets."

 

He saw the flash of her knife, as quick and vile as her witch's smile. This time, when she stabbed him, there was no one around to hear him scream.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES:  
> [+] _Xingan_ \- usually translated as 'sweetheart'. Literally, 'heart and liver'.  
> [+] _Om_ \- Sanskrit. Considered the mother of all other sounds, and so used for meditation.  
> [+] _Tsazhou_ \- this one, I made up. From Boeshane, 'Bound One'. I know we see Jack speaking during English in the flashbacks in "Adam" but, since we're inside his head, I took some liberties. In the future, I imagine it wouldn't be all that strange to have a mother language and then a Standard used for communication across the universe. And I like the way it sounds. ^_~;;  
> [+] according to I Ching, there are eight components of reality, and five elements. The lungs are ruled by _Jin_ (metal) and the universal quality of _yin_ (the dark, passive, 'feminine' side of existence).  
>  [+] Lan Wei's potion contains: pomegranate, wolf berry (the red berries; for longevity and the immune system), cinnamon (improve circulation), ephedra (open breathing passages), and columbine (purple and white petals; said in medieval medicine to drive away all poisons). All of this was taken from _The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects by Barbara G. Walker; Harper Collins, 1988._


	8. Chapter Seven

Jack Harkness was not aware of the absence of his breath until he suddenly, jerkingly, began to draw it in again. As always, this first gasp came not from his throat or lungs, or even his stomach-- it came from the back of his spine, where that gilded, burning hook seemed to yank him mercilessly back into existence. Briefly, a dim image flashed in his brain; a spill of crimson illumination ( _bloodlight_ ) in the Void, shadowing over the edges of _something_ that pulsed, far and ancient and away. As quickly as the impression formed, it was gone. Only a phantom conjured by his own mind, after all, meant to lend shape and texture to a horror that could not be grasped by the living brain. Almost unbearably dizzy, Jack squeezed his still-closed eyes tight and took a second breath. It hurt, as if he'd been removed from the pressured depths of an ocean between one heartbeat and the next. His body ached with it, but even that physical pain did not stop his sensitive psyche from registering a soft, misty warmth as it ghosted past him. Like the touch of Ianto's fingers against his as he passed out coffee, or the way their shoulders sometimes brushed as they walked back from a successful hunt. That casual intimacy had always inspired a fierce warmth in Jack, even as he fought down the flicker of subconscious fear it inspired.

_(Ianto.)_

He called the name not with his lips, but with his mind, with no thought for the regulations he broke in doing so. If they'd occurred to him at all, he would not have cared-- his psyche seized upon that retreating presence the way a man in the desert grasps his last flask of water.   
There were deceptively slim fingers entwined with his own. Jack felt them grip his hand suddenly, and knew exaltation. 

_(Ianto.)_

Squeeze.

 

For one long, cruel moment, he felt the potency of hope-- as sweet and hideous as poison caked in sugar. He was suddenly sure he would open his eyes to gaze up at the ceiling of the gymnasium. He would look up from where he'd been laid out amongst the bodies of Thames House and see Ianto gazing down at him, gripping their hands close. That expression of affectionate frustration would animate Ianto's pale face, and the younger man would lecture in a rough voice about thickheaded plans that always seemed to hinge on Jack's dramatic death, but it would be _okay_. 

'I take it back,' Jack remembered saying to the 4-5-6, feeling Ianto's shoulders tremble under his hands. He'd said that he would take it all back, and he'd meant it then perhaps more than he'd meant anything in his life. _I take it all back, just... not him. Never him._ It was like standing in the eye of the maelstrom on the Valiant, watching the sky had mend and the clock rewind so that, as in some perverse child's game, they'd been granted a chance to do it again. Harkness took another breath, so full of this feeling that he honestly intended to say, _We made it, Ianto. We're okay.'_

Then, the grasp of that familiar, well-loved hand tightened to the point of pain, and another, cooler palm struck him across the cheek. 

 

"Wake up!" Lan Wei hissed, as close and unforgiving as the sinking in the pit of his stomach. Opening his eyes, he saw a pale glass-mask face hovering above him and couldn't place it. He didn't bother to struggle with the memory, instead quickly turning his gaze to Ianto. The young Welshman was almost convulsing on the bed, back arched unnaturally as his muscles spasmed. His lips were parted, but he wasn't breathing-- there was only his grip on Jack's hand, tightening and releasing like the pulse of a heart.

"What--" Jack began, barely recognizing his own voice under the panic.

" _Jau mou gau co aa_!" Wei spat when he looked back over his shoulder, and then he did know her. Her venom-filled voice, and every wrenching step that had brought him to this moment. Sitting up fully, Jack watched the remains of the red binding cord suddenly crumble as though it had been molded from ash. He kept hold of Ianto's fingers, turning on his side to lean urgently over the young man. His free hand moved thoughtlessly to stroke the alarmingly warm brow. 

 

As if aware of the touch, Ianto's mouth opened fully, and cry rent the humid night air. The sound did not truly come from Ianto's throat at all, but it was _of_ him-- a psychic cry abruptly given physical form. It was a desolate thing, this ululation; a moan of someone so lost they have come to believe this abandonment defines them, that there is no such thing as being found. Jack felt a singular sob wrack his own body, but he couldn't hear it over the endless mourning pitch. It burrowed into his ears and his fresh heart, every nerve in his body reverberated with its song.

_(This is Ianto. Ianto Jones, looking up at Jack from the gaudy, tiled floor of Thames House, watching tears roll down the immortal's face. He is so tired, each breath is acid on his tongue, but he fights to stay, to say those three little words even if he knows he will not hear them back.)_

"No!" Jack shouted, the word torn from him. He felt Lan Wei's corpse-cool fingers close around his wrist and almost fought her, but she insistently drew his hand away from Ianto's face. Briefly, the Captain cast her an imploring glance; she rolled her eyes and drew forth once more the knife still warm from his stabbing. This time, she cut him across the wrist, deep and sure.

_(Here is Ianto, in the stillness of the Hub, in that endless blank between midnight and three am. He's working-- tidying, really-- but it's only something to keep his hands busy, and there's precious little to clean with Tosh and Owen gone. The hum of the Rift monitor seems overwhelming in vast main room; everything feels so empty, and yet the world swells with ghosts. Biting his lip, Ianto moves quietly. Jack is sleeping-- a phenomenon that has become even more rare since Grey's unwelcome appearance. In a moment, Ianto will slip back down the hatch to lie carefully beside his Captain, knowing there will be dreams of suffocating cold and dirt raining across his cheeks. The grave will never truly grasp Jack Harkness-- Ianto will murmur this mantra even as he holds the other man close. But here, amongst the so-fresh reminders of loss, Ianto feels another truth.  
He himself is Torchwood, and those of Torchwood die young.)_

 

'It's not true!' Jack wanted to scream, well aware of the lunatic paradox this presented. Instead, he held his bleeding wrist over Ianto's mouth, watching each drop of garnet-black in the candlelight. The sound of despair began to wane, falling considerably with each splash of his blood on Ianto's tongue. Gently, Jack untangled their hands so he could massage the young man's throat, forcing the body to accept his gift. 

_(There's more. There is Ianto, looking at his teammates across the conference table; knowing they are his family and never wanting to jeopardize that by saying so. Feeling Jack's lips against his brow, so grateful and touched he has to turn his face away. There's Ianto, kneeling in the filth and blood of Lisa's second demise, grieving and filled with rage even as his lips still tingle from Jack's kiss. Ianto, in the fire and chaos of Canary Wharf, focused completely on one precious burden.)_

 

Carefully attentive, the Captain watched Ianto's lips purse for a moment, before the wailing began to rise again. His cheeks were wet and his vision swam; he almost started to reach for Wei's knife, to make the cut deeper and give more.

"Give him suck," Lan Wei instructed urgently. "Would you have him die of loneliness in the lands of in-between?"

"Never," Jack whispered. There was a strength of purpose in his movements as he lifted Ianto, cradling the young man in the crook of his arm. Quickly, he pressed his wrist against his lover's mouth, rewarded when those lips formed a seal and began to draw the flow. Thoughtlessly, Jack began rocking a little, thumb stroking across the gash on Ianto's cheek.

_(Further back, now. Lisa's voice, like honey and amber over the wires of Torchwood One's internal switchboard. They speak to each other for months before they actually meet and, when Ianto first lays eyes on her in the wide and busy lobby, he thinks that someone must have imagined her smokey tones and then designed a body to match. And down further, still, like the undisturbed depths of a well. Waiting in lockup, chin tilted rebelliously, while the police call his Da over the shoplifting bust. How terribly thin and small Mam looked, like a morbidly beautiful doll, laying amidst the wires and monitors and eyes open but empty at the end. Falling from the swing when Dad pushed him too hard, the crunch of bone a dull sort of surprise. Rhiannon, suffering him to walk beside her on their first day of school in Newport.)_

 

Ianto was sucking steadily now, feeding. Broken laughter reached Jack's ears, and he realized it was his own, the sound of someone who has felt the whisper of the bullet inches away from their face. The fading cry was only in his mind now; it was a painful touch, but it belonged to Ianto, and that made Jack happy to endure. Once-- though he did not remember it-- he'd told his team to search their minds for a memory that defined them. That diamond-hard kernel of truth amidst the mind's soft flesh; the axis of the ever-tightening inward spiral. 

 

_(And here it is, at the end. A small thing, true, but all beginnings are. Here is the forming of Self, the first memory of Jones, Ianto Jones. A winter evening, the whole of the village draped in a thick swath of snow. He's very young, not yet five, buttoned and zipped and wrapped in a blue striped snow suit with red gloves, scarf, and hat. All day, he's been itching to try out the snow. His attempt to help Da shovel the front walk didn't last very long-- he'd accidentally knocked one of the piles back into the path, and now big-and-tall Da is very cross. Shouting at Ianto to get out from under foot, to stop dithering and give him peace. Now, the boy moves awkwardly through the drifts on the side of the house, sniffling a little, but pleased when the front lights become dim and night closes around him. In the backyard now, where the silence hangs alongside the icicles that decorate the trees. Ianto plops his tiny body down in the big drift formed by the stone wall; the snow is cold, but it cradles him, and the sky is dark as sapphire and dotted with stars above. He is all alone, sole ruler and citizen in the Kingdom of Back Garden Wall, and he likes it that way. Time passes-- he scoops up some snow and thoughtfully lets it melt in his mouth, not minding as the chill creeps into his toes and elbows. Mam comes for him, wearing snow boots and a thick coat over her house dress. She does not scold him, she only looks sad when she mutters that this is not what she'd meant when she set Dad to mind him. She lifts her boy, her baby, in her arms. In a moment, she will carry him inside, but for now she stands barelegged in the back garden, brown eyes drinking in the night. Raising a finger, she points to the stars, her voice soft next to Ianto's ear. There are the Seven Sisters, bright as you'd wish against the winter sky, and she tells him that those aren't really single stars, but worlds and worlds spinning together ever so far away._

_Does it surprise Jack-- as he sits in his tiny apartment cradling the man this boy will become-- to realize Ianto and his mother are looking at the brightest sister, Alycone, whose four recorded stars hide a fifth that will someday know a tiny settlement on the peninsula of Boeshane? Once, it might have, but not any more. There are threads in the loom, a deliberate weave in the fabric of the universe. The pattern, the balance of it all, feels like a voice that mocks man's claims of self determination, all the while whispering to go ahead, make your own way, just_ try. 

_It seems like the work of a hand at once meticulous and insane._ )

 

Jack Harkness closed his eyes briefly, not sure if he was savoring brush of coincidence, or fighting against sensation of being pulled on strings possessed of their own inexorable will. When he looked down at Ianto again, both thoughts were burned away as if they'd never been. The light flush on Ianto's face now was honest and _real_ \-- he was here, that spark safely housed once more in the framework of flesh. Kissing the young man's forehead again and again, Jack tasted the sheen of sweat and his own tears. Ianto was still sucking gently at his wrist; the Captain could feel the fan of breath across his palm, and the thrum of pulse pressed against his arm. Warmth cascaded through him, fed by Ianto's the solid _presence_ and the sensation of giving that flowed out with his blood. The mechanics of the ritual had crossed Jack's mind more than once during the past few days, but he was unprepared for the intimacy of the act itself. A gentle but voracious wave of possessiveness crashed over him; it made him faint and glad and afraid. 

 

All at once, every stern and deliberate word of warning uttered by Agency Professors made sense. He understood now why-- in a century of designer drugs, casual student lounge orgies, and murder for sport-- mental integrity had been regarded with an almost Victorian prudishness. Nudity was fine, sex was fine, pills and body modifications; the callous manipulation of peoples from the past taken as a matter of course. Exploitation and personal freedom to the exclusion of everything else-- by all means, take your fill and then have some more! And yet, young minds were trained to shield from the very beginning, psychic intimacy forbidden and painted as an almost animal indecency. It was so obvious, Jack almost laughed through his tears. 

" _Tsazhou_ ," he murmured, kissing Ianto's cheeks fervently. "You came back. I told you I'd come for you, Ianto. I told you I wouldn't forget." He cradled the young man close, relishing the unfamiliar mental touch as it twined with his own. 

 

A delicate cough reached through the dim light and thick, lemony smell of candles. Jack up sharply, almost comically surprised to see Lan Wei standing by the closed bathroom door. She'd left his mind completely, fading into the shadows with the rest of the universe's concerns. Looking at her now, he found she was leaning almost limp against the wall, eyes closed. A long strand of black hair had escaped her careful twist, falling over a face that appeared no longer pale, but ashen. She did not look old-- Jack thought perhaps she was incapable of looking old-- but she did look extremely tired. There were smudges of violet weariness under her eyes and her hand, still clutching that treacherous knife, shook with exhaustion. There was a splatter of blood across her left cheek, probably from when she'd stabbed him, but the rest of the spray had soaked into her black _qipao_ without a trace.

"Always dressed for the occasion," the Captain muttered in English, shaking his head. 

Wei eyes flashed with annoyance under her heavy lids. "What?" she demanded in Chinese, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Never mind," he replied, switching languages. His eyes were drawn back to Ianto; he forced himself to hold the other man carefully, though his arms longed to tighten for reassurance.

"Not too much," Wei said waspishly, nodding towards Jack's wrist. The strength of Ianto's lips had loosened somewhat, and Jack reluctantly pulled his hand away. He _did_ look like he was sleeping, now, the mess of red around his lips making him look like a boy who'd drifted off after pilfering jam. Chuckling a little, Jack wiped it away with his thumb. 

 

Pushing herself away from the wall, Lan Wei slowly crossed the room towards the workbench. Jack could see that several of the previously empty jars were full, strips of masking tape stuck against them for labels. Gathering them up, Wei moved off towards the kitchen, leaving Jack alone with his prize. 

"I got you back," he whispered, watching each rise and fall of Ianto's chest. It seemed at first that only sounds were of breathing, and the occasional crackle of candle wick. The Captain rested back against the headboard with Ianto in his arms, feeling the flesh in his wrist knit with a well-known, absent itch. Shivering, he hitched up the comforter. There was something else, too, lacing a sudden chill in his bones. Not a sound, exactly, but a _pulse_... the exhale of something that did not have lungs. Alarmed, Jack looked over at Wei's 'box' for the first time since waking. 

 

The thing that looked like a box had taken on a dull, tarnished cast-- a soot-black that reflected nothing, but somehow seemed waxy as well. Jack could just make out the charred remains of his heart sitting atop it. Instinctively, he tightened his arms around Ianto, waiting for that capricious shift, the hideous change in the Box and its emanations. Nothing came-- there was only the dull black of an eye turned inward, and the faint flutter of a psychic halo, like the ghost of a sigh.

_It's asleep,_ Jack thought, though that did not make its presence any easier to bear. Even curled in on itself, the Box seemed to insult the living, like a thing that had grown outside reality. In some ways, Harkness was sure Lan Wei was wrong. It wasn't so much that the Box's origin did not matter-- it was more that attempting to imagine such a thing held a terror like that of the Void. Some things were just _alien_ \-- not to Earth, the solar system, or even the Galaxy, but to the elemental nature of the Universe. This thing, this Box came from Outside. If there was a way to discover what it was and who made it, Jack hoped the knowledge was never visited upon a human being. The image of the Toclafane swam in his mind's eye-- their capering, mad laughter as they screamed and sang of drums and horror at the Universe's End. 

 

"I'm not sorry," Jack said, unaware that he'd intended to speak. He thought of that sick, poison-sweet moment, when he'd been sure he would wake in the gymnasium to find everything was really alright. That he'd believed such a thing for even a second made no sense, and it pierced hard. He moved a little, situating Ianto so that he lay back against against the pillows. Resting on his side, Jack propped himself up on his elbow and kissed Ianto's temple, tracing the pale jaw. "I'll never be sorry," he confided softly, only half-aware of Wei opening and closing cupboards in the kitchen. The words he spoke were bold, to combat the movement of shadows against this single safe space. There was a disquiet in him, a growing sense that he was staring down a long chain of interlocking events, the twist and curve of his lifetime somehow becoming a straight line that drew them together.

 

_(Coordinates and timing; cause and effect. Jack, dancing with Rose during the Blitz; the Doctor rescuing him from the bomb, and what is perhaps his first noble deed since Jace died. Cardiff, where Blaidd Drwg is spray painted in an alley; where the Rift runs like Time itself, golden and merciless as the Big Bad Wolf. From Boeshane to 'pre-civil' Earth of 1941; from the 21st century to the Gamestation of 200,100, and then back to the late 19th Century of humanity's first home. Always Cardiff, always the Rift, more inescapable than gravity, drawing the pieces together. Rose and the Doctor at Torchwood One, the same day Ianto would lose Lisa and turn his gaze back to Wales.)_

 

'How much is coincidence, and how much is just Time Herself?' Not a concept Time Agents were encouraged to think on, but a favored stumbling block of several Professors when they got into their drinks and drugs. He'd always thought that Agency work got to them after a while, too many timelines to differentiate, what-was and what-might-have-been. Not even a century on the Rift had been able to shake that youthful conceit. 

"Now, I'm not so sure," the Captain murmured reluctantly. He held Ianto's hand in two of his own, pleased to find that the feverish heat of his resurrection had settled into a more healthy temperature. He smiled at that well-loved face, relaxed and free of worry in sleep. Joy swelled in him, bitter and sweet like the juice of a pomegranate. He was happy and tired, and more than a little afraid. Laying his head on the pillow, he draped a careful arm around Ianto's waist, not quite ready to get up and tend to any consequences. Here, Ianto was with him, arteries rushing with blood and lungs drawing air unlabored; here, Ianto's presence settled, faint but sure, as a curling warmth in back of Jack's skull.

 

No, he really couldn't find it in himself to be sorry at all.

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GLOSSARY:  
> [+] _Jau mou gau co aa_ \- 'Unbelievably stupid', 'so stupid I must mock you'. An insult.  
> [+] _Tsazhou_ \- this one, I made up. From Boeshane, 'Bound One'.   
> [+] Alycone (Eta Tau) is the brightest star in the Pleiades, otherwise known as the Seven Sisters. Four hundred light years from Earth, it's made up of an eclipsing binary and three companions. I wanted to use one of the Seven Sisters-- I'm ridiculously attached to them-- but couldn't really find a suitable candidate among the visible ones.


	9. Chapter Eight

Quarter after eight on July 14th, the last blush of sunset had fully faded from Macao's sky. At Hua She Street 10, Jack Harkness was slumping against the black curve of the preservation casket, whispering to, waiting for, the young man concealed within. In her own apartment, Lan Wei was packing her antique valise, running an almost soothing hand along the silk wrappings that safely obscured The Box. Nearby, the knife she would stab Harkness with flashed dully, reflecting the evening's veil. In his own heavily-draped fifth floor room, Sun Gao Man-- Shuang's father-- was still asleep on the bottom level of the bunk they shared. In fifteen minutes, his alarm would go off and he would rise for his evening shift in the Entertainment District. Unaccustomed worry would creep along his brow as he shaved and changed into his uniform. He'd glance increasingly at the clock as he took his gun from its lockbox, hoping his boy had come directly from the soccer field. Irritation at what he perceived as youthful cowardice would be gone-- the 4-5-6 had blasted it away, for a little while at least. Five blocks away, the boy and his friend meandered in the general direction of Number Ten, taking their time.

 

With the moldering, fear-soaked Tunnel firmly behind them, Shuang and Ming had walked back towards Hua She Street slowly, not bothering to hurry even though the distance itself was relatively short. Instead, they matched each other's pace without sparing a thought, lingering as the evening stole the worst of summer's heat from the air. Adults moved around them, all absorbed in their own agendas-- the business men climbing from their loud taxis, the part time college boys weaving their speedy bikes through the sidewalk throng. Near the arcade, the pair dodged around a group of teenage girls, arguing loudly about the nearest subway station and their respective curfews. Some of the shops were closing, pulling steel lacing across windows, like giants closing sleep heavy eyes. They saw young couples coming and going from movies or dinner; waitresses and busboys laboring under thick garbage bags; factory workers tilting their faces up to the cloudy sky as if surprised by feel of summer breeze. And, through it all, Shuang and Ming moved like ghosts, gifted with that invisibility particular to children. Grown gazes registered them but slid away quickly, turning back inward, to checkbooks and electric bills, to their boss or their own children, or what was for dinner. The children knew this, and they navigated through the mass of work-worry love-worry money-worry as though picking their way deftly through an overgrown forest. 

 

"People don't move in to Number Ten," Shuang said after a long, thoughtful pause. The weight of this knowledge seemed more dark and pressing than the bellies of the evening clouds. "Baba says we'll have to move out after New Year's, so why would someone move in?" To Shuang, the New Year seemed impossibly distant, if somewhat worrying. It was way past his birthday, and even past the All District Math Competition, but he knew that adults measured time differently. Baba often grumbled about the pressing need to 'find a new place', something that always made Shuang's stomach clutch, a fist curling up along his insides.

"I don't know," Ming said honestly, rolling her tiny shoulders. After a beat, she spread her hands a bit. "He _is_ an American." Together, they silently contemplated this added layer of complexity. Shuang broke first, cracking a little conspiratorial smile that set Ming off into high, quiet giggles.

"I bet everyone was peeking out to get a look," the boy said slyly. Ming nodded, clasping her hands over her chest with mock-seriousness. 

"Oh, very much! All the mothers came out to hang their laundry, even though the news said it will probably rain tonight. The old men were pointing, and Ms. Choi even let us all stand out on the walkway because she wanted a look at him so badly!"

"Well?" Shuang prompted. Ms Choi was what Baba called a 'busybody', which Shuang thought meant that-- while her body was very round-- her mouth moved very fast. If anyone knew anything about the new tenant on his very first day, it would be her.

"Old Mrs Yu almost ran all the way up the stairs after he came." Ming held up a finger, as if to mark the strangeness of the elderly woman doing anything in a rush. "She said that Mr. Yu took him upstairs to his room, and when he did he asked the American straight-out if he was a drug dealer!" 

"If he was, he might have killed Mr. Yu for that!" The boy's mouth formed a little 'o' that matched his friend's. "What if he had been a gangster, or a criminal from overseas?"

"That's what Mrs. Yu said. She was very upset at him for being so foolish." 

"What did he say? The American?" Shuang's voice was quiet, more than a little awed by the elderly landlord's daring. 

"Ms. Yu said that the American-- his name is Jack Harkness--" Ming hesitated a little over the unfamiliar syllables, "just _laughed_ and said 'no'." 

Frowning, Shuang chewed on his lower lip. "I'd be mad if someone called me a drug lord and I really wasn't one. Did he say why he came here, then?"

"No." Twirling a strand of hair around one finger, Ming smiled distantly. "Maybe he has a sad past, like the new mysterious stranger on _Youthful Star_."

" _Yauh mouh gaau cho a!_ " Shuang laughed, giving the older girl a playful shove. "Ming, not everything is like one of your soap operas."

"I know," she blushed a little, "but even Ms Choi said he's handsome enough to be a movie idol." Shuang just rolled his eyes, even as he accepted her light smack on the arm in return. 

 

There was a row of small clothing shops near the corner, and Ming trailed a bit behind him as they made their way to the crosswalk, her eyes drinking in the drape of cloth and patterns. He indulged her, knowing she did the same when they passed comicbook stalls in the market. Moving ahead to the curb, he watched the WALK light flicker away even as Ming drew even with him once more. Swinging his book bag up on a near by bench, Shuang reached into one of the pockets and drew out his cherry sucker. He glanced between the bright wrapper and the light several times, thinking how strange it was that Baba and his teachers were always warning about strangers with candy, and yet doctors gave out candy, too. He had no idea what a stranger's goal would be, but doctors definitely wanted to prick you with needles and put wooden sticks down your throat. Candy hardly seemed like a fair trade.

"I think we should at least get one piece of candy for every needle," he said, zipping his bag again. Ming smiled just a little as they reflexively grasped hands to cross on WALK. When they stepped onto the next curb, she began digging in her little red purse, producing a lollipop of her own. 

"I don't think there'd be enough candy for all the children in Macao if they did that." Daintily, she held the sucker out between thumb and forefinger. "Rootbeer for cherry?"

"Yes!" Shuang said, making the trade and tearing the wrapper off his prize. Shamelessly, he bit into the hard candy, watching as Ming approached hers with delicate licks. 

 

Now they were only a block from home, and Shuang began to feel the shift in the texture and shadows around him. He would never be able to put it into words, but there was something _different_ about Hua She Street. It wasn't obviously bad, like the Tunnel-- in fact, there weren't any dead-things or ghostly leavings at all. Such things, Mama had assured him long ago, were actually quite rare. If just dying left a big mark, she'd said, then all the world would be haunted. Sun Zhu Liao had not possessed all the answers her son desired, but she did have thirty years of experience negotiating between the solid world and the strange wisps of death that bled in, like spots of wine spilled by some thoughtless god. Shuang's heart hurt a little, a feeling of being stabbed from the inside, but he brought the image of Mama to mind easily in spite of it.

 

_(Mama teaches him this tightrope trick before he even truly realizes he's learning it. With the same deep care and protection she applies to washing his hair and bandaging his scrapes, she shows him how to tell the difference between 'real' and 'not-real'. If all the world is blind, then she teaches him how to pretend he can't see, how to look through horrible things and suck in a deep breath, because you couldn't afford to react when others were around. Slight in form and actually rather bubbly in her outlook, Zhu Liao makes blending in an art form, confining the watchfulness of her true graze to the corners of her eyes._

_At the funeral, they'll all say she was such a caring nurse, such a down-to-earth wife and mother, always happy and eager to help. Shuang's grief twines with rage, then, because none of them know or understand. They can't tell that her cheerful voice is often loud just to drown out other things. They don't know that she sometimes cries in the bath after a patient dies, because she can see the black colors moving in and around those in her care but can't tell anyone about it. Sometimes, she gathers Shuang into her lap and just holds him, resting her cheek against his hair, and he sits there as long as she needs him to. Of course he does-- she is Mama, she is his compass, and he knows that when she holds him she is really reminding herself that she isn't one-of-a-kind. There is an aloneness in being special that no one ever draws into comic books or shows in the movies. Once, he asks her if there are others like them-- or maybe even a school, like in Harry Potter-- but she only draws a loving, blunt finger along his cheek and shakes her head. She says she doesn't think so, but she also doesn't _know_._

_And that is the final flourish, the 'Abracadabra!' to tie it all off with a bang. Zhu Liao never uses the term 'blind' when she talks to Shuang about the rest of the world, but the imperative nature of their chameleon skin is never far from her voice. Another danger lurks beyond revealing their true faces to the world, and that is this: If they can see these strange, other worldly things, it stands to reason that those things can also see them. 'Don't look for answers,' Mama tells him silently, every time she squeezes his hand and keeps her gaze fixed straight ahead, ignoring whatever bizarre shade has fallen into their path. Blend in to both worlds, invisible as the weave in the finest of silks. 'Don't go chasing ghosts.')_

 

Shuang bit firmly into the rest of his lollipop, letting the crack reverberate through his jaw and into his mental landscape. He truly _had_ broken his promise to Mama when he'd revealed himself to Ming, but the loneliness had been more intense and sweltering than the worst summer's heat. A silence to go with the pretense of sightlessness, as if someone were cutting his senses off one by one. He'd been almost sure he would choke on it, falling down and gasping like one of Mama's patients. When Baba brought them to Hua She Street, there had been little black flecks in front of his eyes, so hungry and ready to eat up the world. He'd dragged his feet even as Baba fussed at him, pinned desperately between pity and hate for this man, for his father, who was blind. That word kept coming back to him, circling low, even though Mama had scolded him for using it. There was something _in_ Hua She Street, in the buildings and wires and even the cracks of the sidewalks, humming like a river underground. The place was restless, it was _thin_ , but Baba walked around, just one more fool who couldn't see the sign that said 'Watch for Weak Ice'.

 

"There's something different here, isn't there?" Ming's soft voice carried with odd clarity as the traffic of the city faded behind them. Shuang looked up at her, startled for a moment. Several times, early in their friendship, they'd practiced thinking very loudly at each other, trying to see if they could hear each other's minds. Not a single one of those imprecise experiments had met with success, and yet Shuang was sometimes sure in his own bones that she _could_ hear him, somehow. Ming fiddled with her barrette, as though aware of the slip, but she held his gaze firmly. 

"Hua She Street is..." Words failed him, so he simply gripped his temples and said, "Yes." 

"It's like..." she was struggling equally, but the tilt of her chin revealed a stubbornness beyond her age. "Like when chalk squeaks against the board at school. That _sound_."

"Yes!" This time, with more fervor. They turned onto the street in question, craning their small faces up towards the tall buildings all around. The deepening night cast every window into unreflective ebony, like eyes drugged by fearful but stupid dreams. "Mama says--" Shuang broke off, unable to stop the present tense from passing his lips. He closed his eyes for a moment, angry at himself for not remembering, and bit the inside of his cheek for punishment. It would be a year soon, very soon. He knew the truth; even before he could think the words he'd felt the _away-ness_ of his mother's presence, the emptiness of the body that had once been so ready to hold him and soothe his hurts. Why couldn't he get something so simple _right_? "Mama said that sometimes things soak in. It's like rain, or juice when you spill it on the carpet. You can try to clean it up or get it out, but sometimes it leaves a mark. Feelings and... people, too. I guess." 

 

_(He's with her at the hospital-- but she's still working, healthy and alive. When they walk past a certain set a of double doors, a wet chill slithers over him, a smell like sulfur and the texture of many screams. He follows the rules-- he looks straight ahead and presses close to her side. Later, Mama tells him she doesn't like that wing either. It used to be the psychiatric ward, she says and, though 'psychiatric' is a difficult word for him, Shuang understands from her touch that this means 'head-sick' instead of 'body-sick'. He clasps his hands behind her neck when she leans down to tuck him in, and she lets him. Her short, sensible bob makes a little curtain and tickles his cheeks._

_"I know it feels bad, but please don't worry," she whispers. "There are so many people who work hard at the hospital, cleaning up blood and vomit and urine, making sure everything is safe and clean. If they didn't, all that stuff would pile up and breed disease. The things you and I see are like that, only there's no one to come and mop them up. So we must be careful and not touch these things, the same way you don't go rooting around in the garbage.")_

 

"Soaking in," Ming echoed thoughtfully. "Like when my paints bleed through pages and pages and make a mess." She stuck the lollipop in her mouth, finally taking a real bite and removing the rest with a loud 'pop'. "But Shuang, I never see any dead-things here."  
The boy shrugged his shoulders. Personally, he couldn't understand why they should question good luck. If Hua She Street had been like the Tunnel, Shuang was pretty sure even the best tricks in the world wouldn't have lasted forever. Eventually, he'd just start screaming, he'd be caught, and then...   
_'Poof! Bang! The End!'_ he thought dully. Probably, they'd send _him_ to the Psychiatric Ward. In the Kingdom of the Blind, only crazy people could see. 

 

"That American. Harkness." The word popped out of her mouth with the same unexpected candy sound. "Shuang... I did something that maybe I shouldn't have." They were at Number Five now, just another in a long line of gray, senseless totems. Ming chewed the rest of the candy off her stick, pitching the remains into the nearby trash can. Copying the movement, Shuang waited her out. Just as it sometimes seemed that Ming could read his mind, he thought he was able to understand something in her silences. There was a genuine worry in her that lay between her words. "I _looked_ at him."

"Oh," Shuang said. His friend was looking down at her shoes, as if embarrassed, and he thought he understood why. This was another one of Mama's tricks-- something Ming had not known about until he' himself passed the knowledge along. Mama called this type of looking an 'aura', which just meant the colors around a person. Unlike the ghosts and shadows they were unwillingly subjected to, seeing the colors that belonged to a living person was much more difficult. It took a lot of concentration and-- in Shuang's limited experience-- usually resulted in a pounding headache. All in all, Mama had concluded that the practice was a bit rude, and so used it only when science and her doctor-tools couldn't tell her why a patient was sick. Sometimes looking at the aura helped, sometimes not, but (as careful as Mama was) she was always determined to do everything she could to help. "Didn't that hurt?" he asked, far more concerned with Ming attempting such a thing by herself. 

"I told you there were a lot of kids at Ms. Choi's," she mumbled. "It wasn't hard to take some headache pills out of the bathroom."

"Grown-ups are supposed to get the pills!" he admonished. 

Now Ming was defiant, eyes almost ebony as they narrowed. "Do you want to know what I saw, or not?" They walked past the next three buildings in silence, before Shuang finally conceded. 

"Fine. What color was this Harkness guy?"

 

"Colors," Ming corrected him, raising an eyebrow. Despite himself, Shuang was curious. Mama had been a bright peony red; Baba was a green that had deepened since her passing. Though he couldn't see his own color, Shuang knew his mother had chosen his name because he was a brilliant orange, like the sunrise. He'd never met anyone who was more than one color. Ming herself had an aura of peach-pink, with tiny darker flecks. This had been cause for concern when Shuang had first looked, but he'd long since concluded that sometimes auras did have different shades. After all, Baba's green was no where near as bright as it used to be. "Harkness was three different colors."

"Why did you even look?" he asked, mouth tasting bitter. 

"He was a stranger. A foreigner," she reasoned, obviously trying to keep her tone light. The heaviness lay inside her pause. "Everyone had so much to say about him, I just wanted to know... if he was okay."

"You can't tell if someone is bad by looking at their color!" Even as he said it, Shuang wasn't really sure it was true. He hadn't looked at enough people to know, and Mama's concerns had been about health, not… 

_(morality?)_

danger. Ming must have known this, dark eyes measuring him, but she ignored it.

"Inside, close to his body, there was a thick bit of sky blue," she moved her small hands to illustrate. Shuang nodded, wondering dimly why it felt like there was salt on his tongue. "Then, there was a thinner bit of gold. And then..." Nervously, she glanced up at their own building, growing closer with each step. "Around the outside, it was all _black_."

 

"I don't know what that means, Ming." He looked up at her honestly, willing her to understand. In the books and the movies, there was always a secret letter or a box or treasure chest-- something left behind when that precious person died, telling you what to do. There was a wise old wizard, or monk, or sage, who came to show you how to use your powers the right way. But Mama had died, swiftly, unexpectedly, leaving only the memory of her touch. A 'brain aneurism', the doctors reported, which was just another way of saying that her special _seeing_ mind had played one final, horrible trick. Such a nasty joke, a hole in the tightrope's safety net! One wrong step and she really _did_ fall, 

_(he was too small to catch her)_

an ashen thing against the white kitchen tile. A powerful feeling welled in Shuang's gut. This very second, he wanted to narrow his eyes and look at Ming hard, look at her until his head ached and her colors unfolded from her body like the halos painted around angels. He'd tell her to do the same, return the favor; after everything, the stupid frightening aliens and the weird adults, they would look under each other's skin and really know everything was okay. 

"I'm sorry?" For all her small advantages in height and age, Ming looked distressingly vulnerable to him now. She stopped him as they approached the gate of Hua She Street Number Ten, putting small hands on his shoulders.

His throat clicked several times as he swallowed. "It's okay. Maybe it's good that you looked-- I don't think regular people are supposed to have more than one color."

"Good." Overcome with relief, Ming darted forward and kissed him on the cheek. She smelled of concern and strawberry shampoo, with just a little cherry-flavored candy. 

"Don't be gross!" Shuang whined, wiping at the spot. "I don't want your girl germs!" He rolled his eyes at her again, very obviously this time. 

"If I had any, you'd be able to see them," she returned with a fake pout. Then, she pushed open the familiar gate and they slipped through in turn. Ignored in the pocket of Shuang's soccer shorts, his little waterproof watch read 8:39 pm. 

 

Later, when he had time to think about it, Shuang would find little bits of guilt clinging to his mouth and hands. He'd feel sorry for shouting at Ming, long after she'd forgiven him, long after they both realized mere human words didn't have the power their youthful minds had perceived. Here and now, in the moments of just-after-nine in the courtyard of Hua She Street Number Ten, that insight was as alien to him as the coastline of another country. He slipped through the gate right behind his friend, coming into the wide 'U' formed by the three crumbling apartment buildings. Glancing up towards his own floor first, Shuang actually didn't see it right away. Instead, he heard the soft intake of breath beside him, a sound so _hurt_ he thought Ming might be in physical pain. He never looked at her, though-- his eye was drawn to the brilliance in the center of the courtyard, blotting out the single, bent tree. 

"Oh, Ming, why did you say that, before?" he cried, gritting his teeth. She could have punched him in the face, and it would have hurt less. "Why did you say we never see dead-things here!? The gods heard you! _You made it come true!_ "

"S-s-sorryy.." she moaned around the fist she'd shoved in her own mouth. He'd grabbed at her-- felt that she was actually afraid of him in that moment-- but, despite his angry words, he was really clinging to her for security. 

 

The light was really just a dim glow but, at first, it still felt too bright for the eye to discern any detail. It was tall, like the corona of color around a living human male, but there was nothing inside of it. The children watched, barely breathing, waiting for the the shape to gain power and pull in on itself in the fashion of dead-things. It did neither. The glow never changed-- Shuang didn't even think he blinked once during the entire incident. Instead it evolved somehow, as if arriving in their reality from some great distance. A being appeared inside it, whole and complete. In all his short life, the young boy had always sensed a missing quality when he used his other sight, the same prickling absence that crept into the radio between stations, or the tired projections from a videotape used one too many times. Dead-things were hollow, like someone had scooped out all their insides-- not the organs his mother carefully taught him about, but some force at once ephemeral and yet more real than flesh. This was very different, as if the fullness of the image had been there all along, obscured only by the vastness of its journey. 

"Oh," Ming was saying beside him. "Oh."

Inside the halo of deep-ocean blue, was a man. A living man, the children would have thought had they not seen the whole thing, for they were sure dead-things had no colors of their own. He was foreign, which made it difficult guess how old he was, but Shuang thought he was younger than Baba, perhaps even college-young. The apparition was dressed well, in a white collared shirt with dark vest and slacks, but the overall effect was not quite like the businessmen ubiquitous in Macao. To the boy, he looked as if he'd stepped from one the period movies his Mama had been so fond of. The man stood there, hands folded together, looking downward, or perhaps inward. 

 

"Is he lost?" Ming asked quietly. She was gripping Shuang back, so hard he could feel her tiny nails, but curiosity bled everywhere in her small voice. "He looks so sad."

"Maybe he belongs to that American," Shuang reasoned, biting his lip. It seemed to him that the Blue Ghost-- if that's what it was-- was more confused than sorrowful. A traveler who'd turned up on the entirely wrong shore, discovering that the map had been upside down, or backwards, or not the right map at all. "Maybe that Harkness killed this man. Like the people in the tunnel-- but the ghost stuck to his killer and not the place." That happened sometimes in movies, but he'd never heard of it in real life. Before Shuang realized it, Ming slipped out from under his hands and stepped fully into the courtyard. Her gaze flickered to each building until she was certain they were alone.

" _Daaih lou_!" the girl whisper-shouted, as loudly as she dared. Shuang was at her side in an instant. "Are you lost?"

" _Chin sin_!" he hissed at her. "Don't talk to him! We're never supposed to talk to any of them!"

"But--" It was too late; the night air had carried Ming's voice into the borderlands, and the ghost looked up at them both. Those eyes-- a gray that was blue that was silver-- seemed to register their presence even as the gaze searched for something (someone?) else. In that moment, Shuang smelled sulfur and cedar, heard the rhythm of a distant bay and agony of those _hungry hungry_ whispers from his alien dreams.

 

Then, just as quickly, there was nothing in the courtyard save the two children and the ghost-pale, crooked tree. 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GLOSSARY:  
> [+] _Yauh mouh gaau cho a!_ \- "No way!" Disbelief to the universe in general.  
> [+] _Daaih louh_ \- lit, Elder brother. Also used as respect for a male aquaintance younger than one's father.  
> [+] _Chin sin_ \- 'You're crazy!'. Slang.
> 
> As always, new reader or old, I would love to know what you think! ;-)


	10. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am pleased to announce that I have actually _written something_ for this story, instead of just cleaning up/adding to old stuff. *bounces a little giddily* It still has to be typed and edited, but I will probably pick up the posting schedule so I can share it as soon as its ready. ;-)
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I would love to know what you think!

_("They say it was a pomegranate, in the Garden of Eden.")_

Jack was still laying next to Ianto, arm gently curled around the younger man's waist, his breath the hushed stir of a mystic entering a sacred space. Briefly, he let his forehead rest against the Welshman's temple, and thought he could hear the far-off current of spirit unfurling in flesh. It sounded like Cardiff Bay the clearest of nights, when each wave and ripple seemed to have its own voice. He sighed softly, and closed his eyes to savor it.

 

_(Faith is holding The Lover's card between two porcelain fingers, colors of the illustration gem-bright even in the smoke and heavy shadows. She's grabbing his shirt cuff, willing him to understand._

_"This boy, he reaches for the fruit, but he doesn't know. Not yet. The pomegranate is on this card because real love feasts on your heart." It's always dark in the dusty, out-of-the-way chambers Faith frequents, which should render the card's image gloomy. Yet it's so _red_. It's vibrant, the stain spreading from the fruit itself to the palms of the young man holding it. Vermillion swallows the edges of Jack's vision, but it cannot hide the familiar lines of Ianto's profile, captured in old ink. Crimson, scarlet, ruby set to burn; it's_ (bloodlight) _overwhelming, and he has to get away._

_He draws a gasp, but the red is in his mouth, and Faith says--)_

 

"Are you listening to me?" For one firm heartbeat, Lan Wei's exasperated tone and Faith's far off echo were one. 

Startled, Jack instinctively moved to shield Ianto's body with his own, glaring at his guest over a bare shoulder. Too full of relief, adrenaline and cresting energy of his own resurrection, Jack _knew_ he hadn't fallen asleep. Not even for a moment, as clearly evinced by the fact Wei was just now exiting the kitchen. Never the less, he couldn't shake the sullen ache in his bones-- that jump in perception and consciousness , like the tiniest of fissures in time. The same jittery touch lingered over pilots when they reached certain altitudes; it fell against soldiers in the heat of battle, doctors when the surgery was at its most delicate; sages sought it at the core of each fast. It was there even for the most dedicated and exhausted of grad students, filling their minds with the buzz of static as night deepened and the dorm lights seemed to gain physical texture. Not a terribly unfamiliar sensation, but one Jack distrusted all the same. His gaze flickered automatically towards The Box, which sat unconcerned and pewter-dull on the workbench stool. 

 

"Not listening, obviously," Wei answered herself, scrubbing tiredly at her eyes. Retrieving a small container from the valise, she approached The Box with the knife held as a natural extension of her dominant hand. "Is there anything between your ears to hold in my words?"

"Plenty," Jack replied dryly, turning his attention back to Ianto. He placed a soft kiss at the corner of that relaxed, vowel-rounded mouth, thumb brushing against the cut on Ianto's right cheek. Absently, he considered that it would probably scar. 

"We are not finished." There was something hard underneath the annoyance in those dark soprano tones. Swallowing his own irritation, the Captain forced himself to roll off the bed and shrugged on his shirt, barely bothering with a few buttons before returning to smooth the comforter over Ianto's sleeping form. Wide hands arranged the pillows and pulled the blanket down to cover the sleeping man's feet. 

"You're right," he said vaguely. "Excuse me if I've been a little preoccupied." Standing straight, he made himself look directly into her black, ironwood eyes. Grudgingly, but with honesty, " _Do jeh saai._ "

She waved his thanks away with an imperious hand, "I told you not to bother with politeness." He raised an eyebrow, but she ignored him, instead turning to The Box with a caution that surprised him. The burnt remnants of Jack's previous heart still lay atop it, jagged piles like a ruined city skyline. Movements precise, Wei took her knife and began to carefully scrape the ash and ruined tissue off, catching it in her plastic bowl. 

"You and that knife of yours," he muttered, sitting down on the very edge of the bed. "I suppose you want your payment now?"

 

"No." Snapping the lid closed, Wei set the container aside and wiped the blade on the silky edge of her _qipao_. "I said to you, this is not finished. When it is, I will take this information you have stored, so I can be a true shadow." Her fingers trailed daintily along the sides of The Box, almost a caress. The sight made Jack's heart chill, but he didn't think Wei was even aware she was doing it. That impossibly youthful face had taken on a blank look, like the inward gaze of the alien _thing_ she held. "Yes, I stabbed you again, but why be angry?" Voice almost a whisper, now. "I told you, the best currency is blood. I remember Canton when the Japanese came. Paper money, ha! Better for burning, to keep yourself warm-- worth nothing at all. Gold, gems and jade; those work only through the avarice of the human heart. What use do the gods have for such things? And nowadays!" She looked up at him, lip curling with disgust. "Riches stored in computers, all theory and plastic cards, little green numbers on a screen I say to you, this will not last. At the very end, only blood will do." A little laugh sprung from her and, though Harkness couldn't fathom why, it sounded strangled. "What is the English? 'To take it out in trade'?"

"Yes." The Captain responded, clamping his lips closed to keep it just that short. Behind his clenched jaws, there were other words. _Oh, honey, you have no idea_. He imagined the Toclafane, singing, laughing Martha's name from their shells of decaying flesh and steel. The longer his gaze unwillingly held to The Box, the more that opaque ebony seemed like the armor of those horrible, childish spheres. Mercifully, Wei chose that moment to wrap her artifact in silk again, swaddling it almost as one would a small child. Cradling it that same way, she lowered it back into the valise. 

"This," she gestured towards the covered bowl, "I will cook for you."

Jack stumbled over this, blinking away the memories. "I'm sorry?"

"Aiya! Don't you know _anything_?" Her hands were thrown up in a gesture of dismay. "All those weapons, all that technology, and men know not even the simplest mechanics of power! This left over bit of you, your heart. Do you think I should just throw it away?"

"Frankly, I didn't think there'd be anything left at all."

"Well, there is. And it is not trash! Someone else could take this piece of you, and thus consume some of your power. Therefore, you must take it back into yourself." Jack nodded to show his comprehension, but Lan Wei was not impressed. Instead, a coy smile twitched on her lips, the sick flicker of a pinned butterfly. "Unless, of course, you'd prefer to eat it raw?"

"I'll pass, thanks." The Captain curled his fists against his knees, silently willing her to leave. In the candlelit darkness, the apartment still swelled with wax, the twinge of oily citrus, and Wei's disease-petal perfume. He wanted to snuff out those candles, open the windows to the humid but clean Macao night. With only the lights from the city to cast shadows, he'd sit beside Ianto and watch that beloved face. He had, after all, worlds and time to wait. Thrumming with tension and all its latest abuse, Jack willed his body to relax but couldn't even uncoil a single locked muscle. Blearily, he glanced over at the clock, which etched time time-- 11:42 pm-- in little red blocks. Oblivious-- or simply unconcerned-- Wei finished packing and began slinking along the corners of the room, as if she herself was a part of the gloom. The candles were extinguished one by one and, without warning, Lan Wei almost viscously flicked on the lights. 

 

Of their own volition, Jack's hands moved to shade his eyes from the artificial glow, glaring vaguely in her general direction. Pulse sluggish and wrist aching, he felt almost certain she had broken some spell-- the same way vain woman shatters her traitorous mirror. He disregarded the painful spots of color in his vision, turning violently towards Ianto. That newborn, almost translucent sensation of connection held, anchoring Jack even as he looked fully at his lover's form. The harsh lighting revealed a bit of dried blood clinging to the hollow of his throat, but that was all. It was fully Ianto now, sleeping quietly in bed, brow furrowed ever so slightly as he dreamed. Jack's heart had known this while those beloved lips suckled at his wrist; known it, and rejoiced. Now his mind, the surface of logic and self-preservation coating his psyche instinct, understood it as well. This was real, this was something he was seeing with his own two eyes. For the first time since waking after Thames House, the grate of reality against Jack's skin was gone. He hadn't even registered that painful scrape until it stopped, but he sagged gratefully all the same. 

"Ianto. Ianto's here." His relieved laughter mingled with Wei's-- he knew her amusement was unpleasant and directed at him, but he didn't care. 

"Now will you listen?" she said, hiding her giggles behind her hand in the manner of cultured ladies. "You must know how to care for your boy. Your..." A moment of earnest frustration with the sounds. "... Ee-ahn-tow." 

"I'm all ears." 

"Do not try to put English sayings into Chinese," she scolded, bending to collect the cooler as well. The green lid closed over the morass of melting ice and diluted blood, and she nudged it away with her foot. "I took four jars of blood from you when I stabbed you." There was a little flash of mental vertigo for Jack at the casual comment. He thought of John Hart, plucking a tiny key from the lining of his own throat, smiling at Gwen and saying there were no hard feelings. Wei had that same, business-pleasant mien. For all her hatred of the 'modern' era, it occurred to Jack that she had the heart of a true Vegas Galaxy bandit. 

"Four jars," Jack smirked right back at her, keeping up the thrust and parry. "Busy girl."

"Very fresh. These will last four days, then the potency will go out of them. On the morning of the fourth day, you will come see me and we will get more. You will feed him with this." From somewhere in the slim folds of her _qipao_ , she produced a small glass eyedropper. Handing it to him, she poked a sharp manicured nail against the fabric of his dress shirt. "Every two hours, as with an infant."

"Of course," he nodded, frowning down at the eyedropper in his open palm. His eyes ran naturally to the raised line of still-healing flesh on his wrist. "But why not--"

"Why not straight from the vein?" Oh, pleasant facade or no, those dusky eyes were lit with amusement. "Does it ache?" She moved as if to touch the wound, and he jerked away frantically, surprised at himself. The skin did ache, but it was not with the familiar itch of his more than human resilience. This throb was distant but firm, the sensation of slow warmth right against the hip bone. His mind seized on the memory of Ianto feeding with tender clarity, and Jack felt again that rush of intimacy and giving that had swept through him. Like a match to dry grass, even the thought was enough to make the ache sweeten unbearably. 

"It does," he admitted at last. 

"And it will continue to do so." She arched an eyebrow back at him. "You will be tempted, but you must not do this. The connection is too strong, too raw. He has only just come back from the borders of No-Place. You must not strain him."

"I understand," Harkness said, pulling his shirt cuff down to cover the sensitive skin. 

"If you are tempted, go out. Walk, eat, do something until it passes." She rolled her eyes at his look of alarm. "He will be fine. Every two hours you must feed him, but he will not wake for a few days. Not everyone bounds back gasping like you do--" Wei's smile was sharp, "-- a vagrant kicked out by the Lords of Hell." 

"Charming." He flexed his own con-man grin once more, before his tone became contemplative. "Why _does_ it ache? Do you know?"

"I told you, he will only ever want to feed from you." Wei turned with a sigh, as if discontent with the direction of the conversation. Picking up with cooler with one hand and the valise with the other, she marched purposefully towards the door. Jack followed her in a mixture of fascination and polite habit. "But just as he will hunger to take, you will hunger to give." The Captain opened the door for her, never taking his eyes off that resentful, little-girl face. "This is mating, not marriage. Here, there is equality. Balance."

 

_(Balance._

_Mother worships at the altar of Science and Logic, the child of an in-world that glitters with its crown of towers and technology. Papa has occasionally been known to pray, somewhat distractedly, to Goshen, the Lady of Harvests-- in spite of the indulgent looks from Ahmah and Mother. And what of Ahmah, who passed before all-consuming white of the crèche, before Mama knelt screaming in the sand, and even before Grey's hand slipped free? If she has gods, she hides them well-- she worships the freedom and clean air of Boeshane, and her curses always call back the mechanical drones and furnaces of her industrial homeworld. And yet... there's a disc of glass against her breastbone, black and white blurring like snakes devouring each other's tails. It is not a Yin-Yang, but Jack thinks now that might not matter._

_She says the cosmos craves Balance above all else.)_

 

 

"Binding and bound." Jack rubs the back of his skull, where the phantom warmth of Ianto's rhythmic, ocean mind seems to manifest. "More than you know, probably."

"More than _you_ know," Wei spits, suddenly all offense, like a cat with its spine arched in anger. "I tell you now, to be careful of spirits and dreams. Care not just for his body in this world, but his spirit beneath the skin. You cannot enact _sheng_ without also beginning the cycle of _ke_. There will be traps."

"I don't know those words." He repeated ' _sheng_ ' and ' _ke_ ', this time as questions. 

"'Creation'-- as when we brought your boy back. And 'destruction', which is the death we saved him from." Before the Captain could open his mouth again, Lan Wei stepped fully beyond the door and out onto the walkway. For a moment, she stood there, hands fisted around handles, glaring up at him mutinously. Then, she pulled her lips away from her teeth and _spat_ , just outside the threshold. "I hate you," she said. "Do not forget this."

Jack wrinkled his nose at the pink-tinged saliva on the walkway cement. As the evening breeze touched against him lightly, he was even more aware of Wei's acidic smell, deepening to blooms so rotten they seeped into the tomb. "Forget? I'd say you make that awfully difficult, don't you?"

"When you feel you are getting what you want, Jack Harkness, you forget things." Her words were merciless, a reflection in her own selfish glass. "You see tools, not people."

 

_(Ianto, kneeling in the darkened hub, amidst the debris of flesh, metal and misplaced hopes.  
"I clean up your shit, no questions asked." Blue eyes so hard, the chill of the ice that refused to know the sun. "And that's the way you like it.")_

 

Jack's jaw barely twitched but, somehow, Lan Wei knew. She nodded to herself, as if confirming the clip of a bullet against the mark. Even in the poor walkway lighting, her neck flashed pale under the black Mandarin collar. Harkness held his anger in his fisted hands, and did not reach for it. The look Wei gave him in return was knowing, almost sultry, but Jack was certain she wasn't really seeing him. It suddenly came to him that she would sleep tonight on the same creamy, flowered quilt that Ahn Mei once shivered under. He did not know how he knew this-- Lan Wei was no more a psychic entity than she was a human one-- but he didn't question that it felt like fact. She _had_ kept it, long after it ceased smelling of the woman she'd embroidered it for. From city to city, through the Japanese, the Kuomintang, and the Communist regime-- it traveled with her, just as Ahn Mei's portrait on its venerated shelf. Tonight, she would take the length of fabric from its place of honor in a cedar-lined box and, despite the close and ungentle summer darkness, she'd curl around that fading memory of safety. The image was visceral, but it inspired no pity in him. The stink of her resentment was the stink of urine in a hospice ward, all humiliation and despair. She just... she needed to be gone. Wrung out, it seemed his new heart was capable not only of hope, but also of avarice. He wanted to look at Ianto, freshly ransomed from the Void, look at him and just know. 

"You have your boy." Lan Wei said again. _And what do I have?_ The words were palpable, but hung unspoken between them. Turning on her heel, she walked away briskly, never once looking back. 

 

Jack closed and bolted the door firmly behind her.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Though the bright, firm reality of the overhead lights offered their own brand of relief, Jack found himself dowsing them almost as soon as Lan Wei was gone. The darkness was a different sort of balm-- the busy neon glare of the city stole in through the glazed windows, throwing the faintest of blue shadows. He left only the bathroom light still glaring, closing the door but for a faint crack of illumination and very deliberately not thinking about how Mother used to do the same thing for himself and Gray. That bright band of light, falling across the dull chrome and woven rugs of the bedroom he'd shared with his little brother; a little ribbon of safety that seemed to soak into his quilts, even as the entire Complex groaned and shook with the worst of Boeshane's winter storms. Mother had always been bemused by this, shaking her close waves of blond hair and repeating to both her boys that nothing existed in the darkness that did not also exist in the light.

It was funny, Jack mused, how people so often lied without meaning to. 

 

In the kitchen, the new refrigerator hummed in quiet, vacant contemplation, a low counterpoint to the creaking of the ancient pipes. Scrubbing his eyes tiredly, Jack turned in a slow circle, taking in the gloom as it rested over the landscape of the small apartment. Here, the rocking chair by the window, casting a jungle of black shade like the twist of tiny wires. There, his workbench, with his wristband gleaming, having gone completely unnoticed by Wei. And the bed, where Ianto lay sleeping, his soft sigh of exhalation loud and sweet in Jack's ears. Thoughtlessly, Jack came to kneel by the bed, propping his elbows on the mattress as he reached for Ianto's hand. Some things needed darkness, needed the illusion of warm depths like those which bubbled from the close Earth, carving space in an icy glacier. 

 

He smiled mockingly at the turn of his own thoughts, but that could not dispel the truth. How many times had he opened his eyes, driven to wakefulness by the sound of the Master's drums, to savor the feel of Ianto as they spooned together in his tiny Torchwood bunk? It wasn't the lack of light itself, but the texture, the closeness. The sleepy rhythm of Ianto's mind brushed against him, instinctively soothing. The Captain sighed in pleasure, eyes rolling closed. Oh, the potency of that touch was new and startling, but the sensation itself was not. That unconscious caress used to wake him-- once upon a time-- on nights when he would rise to find Ianto still somewhere in the Hub. Drawn, savoring it even as he resented the growing strength of its allure, he would come into the kitchen or the antechamber off the Archives to find the young Welshman bent over some menial task. He'd situate himself, hips canted, propped against the door or the wall, and wait for those stormy eyes to rise. Every ounce of his body language always conveyed blatant invitation, especially in the early days, when Ianto seemed to slide along the edges of what was real, gradually fading into the background.

 

_(Ianto, his face an exercise in rigid serenity, opening the door to discover Jack standing outside his flat. Two days into his suspension, two days after_ Lisa _, and he looked like a man who'd forgotten the meaning of sleep, white as bone save for where anger flushed up against his neck. Jack stood there patiently, glancing around a living space that held no mark or hint of an owner-- just an empty space, a place of transience. So certain he'd been, when he'd set out from the Hub, that he could discuss this with Ianto rationally. His own calm had curdled, folding away on itself, as he realized that everything about Ianto being in Cardiff hinged on Lisa and Lisa alone. The unadorned, furnished room echoed with a silence that was like Ianto's scream as they hauled her ruins away. Looking at the young man's face, Jack saw that the future was gone from it. Nothing in those ash blue eyes but the pain of stepping from one moment to the next._

_"Have you come to Ret-Con me?" Ianto asked, voice passionless. There was the smallest of fissures in his calm, though-- a brief flash of desperation, as if part of him relished the idea. "I don't know why you bothered to wait. You should have done it that night and spared yourself the trip." A beat. He then asked, politeness laced with hysteria, if Jack wouldn't like some tea or coffee._

_"I haven't come to Ret-Con you," Jack said firmly, following the younger man into the equally spartan kitchen. The expensive coffee machine and neat row of cups were the only signs of Ianto's tidy, elegant touch. "You're not getting away that easily."_

_The Welshman whirled around, and Jack had been prepared for hatred in that gaze. Had steeled himself for it, envisioning it even as he shrugged on his coat and asked Tosh to mind the Hub, walking purposefully towards Ianto's neighborhood. Strengthening his own fortress walls, he'd reminded himself of every little deception, every lingering touch on his wrist, the buzz of the cyberwoman's voice, and the sight of Rose's name heartlessly printed amongst the dead of Canary Wharf. There were strategies for anger and loathing, but not for the honest, hopeless confusion that animated Ianto's face._

_"You can't punish me any more, sir." Formal and correct, even in his despair. "You can't hurt me any more than this hurts, knowing I failed. Knowing..." Ianto's gaze fixed on something far away. "... knowing there's nothing after this." Shaking his head, he'd returned to busying himself with the coffee, falling into a familiar rhythm._

_The Captain's response surprised even himself. "I'm not trying to punish you."_

_A fake little cough of disbelief, from the man who did not stoop enough to snort. "You could have fooled me." Contemplatively, he added, "It's what the others want. Owen and Gwen, at least. Isn't that human nature? A pound of flesh."_

_"As you pointed out, you've already given everything you had." Jack watched those genteel hands pour a cup for each of them. Ianto set one on the table, close to his leader, dark brew fixed just to his liking. Harkness indulged in a sip, watching his companion carefully. The boy was hard to read, all the more difficult because he was adept at letting you_ think _you'd pieced together something. A sense of embarrassment licked along the anger in Jack's gut. "You did a lot of good at Torchwood-- with the Archives, the computers. Hell, even by simply getting the others to keep the place decent. And, clearly, you're far more talented with security systems than you ever let on." Putting the cup down, he reached across towards Ianto, forcing himself to move slowly. Even with the obvious intent, the Welshman still shook visibly the hand closed around his upper arm._ Still dressed well _, Jack observed with appreciative amusement, taking in Ianto's collared gray shirt and dark slacks. Pitching his voice low, he murmured, "You've been an asset to the team before, and you will be again."_

_The blank look on Ianto's face gave no warning-- he shoved Jack hard, and only the fact he was leading with his weaker arm allowed the Captain to turn the attack in his favor. His hand had been on Ianto's right arm, and now it slid down to capture the slim wrist, pulling it behind the younger man's back as he used his own body to pin Ianto against the white kitchen wall._

_"Damn you!" It was a curse and a sob. Ianto brought his head down sharply, trying to knock their skulls together, but Jack ducked it easily. He pressed them chest to chest, not a breath between their bodies, mouthing words against Ianto's ear even as his opponent thrashed._

_"Are you finished?" The blood in his own veins sang high, the fingers he held so firmly were the same ones that had teased, always darting out of range and the last moment._

_"Was finished, am finished," Ianto snarled incoherently. "Can't you even comprehend that much? I can't stand this!"_

_Jack pulled away, so they were nose to nose. "You don't want to come back to Torchwood?"_

_"I don't want_ anything _!" Finally, finally the younger man went limp. The scent of sleeplessness and depression reached Jack's nostrils but, underneath that, the unmistakable aroma of cedar and sugarcane. Fresh, sweet and heady; and a touch against his mind, faint and elusive as breeze from the ocean. His eyes dropped automatically to the firm curve of Ianto's lips. A whisper came, "I know what you did. I don't know how you did it, but-- for just a moment, down there in the Hub-- I was gone. She-- It-- killed me. I was dead."_

_"Simple CPR." Jack was breathing far too heavily to manage a light tone, but he gave it his best shot. He smirked a little,"I got there just in time."_

_"You shouldn't have done." For a moment, Ianto sagged against his captor, before he leaned back more deliberately against the wall, still unwilling to give ground. "I'm a traitor and a coward. You said it yourself. You should have left me there, dead with the rest of the filth." He squeezed his eyes closed, as if smothering something inside. "And you're a liar. Your punishment was bringing me back."_

_"No." Even in the sudden, hurricane-eye of his rage, Jack was honest. "No." Angling his mouth, he took Ianto's, giving the young man that same burning kiss he'd bestowed in the Hub. Without forgiveness, he bruised Ianto's lips against his own, lingering soft for a moment before rallying harshly once more. There was a second of answering fervor, a brief return and cling of an embrace. One of the Captain's hands came up to stroke Ianto's neck, the line of his jaw, as if drawn by the racing pulse. He realized his mistake as soon as he felt the younger man's muscles tense, but it was too late. Right hand free, Ianto gained enough leverage to push the other man away, gasping for air. Jack stumbled backwards, narrowly missing the table, managing to right himself before he fell._

_"Should have done that in the warehouse, straight off," Harkness licked his lips. "Would have saved us some trouble."_

_"Fuck you." Ianto groaned as if punched in the gut. Sliding down the wall, he rested his head on his knees, body shaking. The groan became something else, a sound Jack at first didn't recognize. It trembled in the air, it was in the grimace of a smile on the young man's face._

_"That," Ianto said, "was not CPR." He laughed hysterically, until tears rolled down his face._

_Three weeks later, Ianto had calmly lied during Gwen's ridiculous campfire game. That face had once more been a mask, honest sadness mingled with challenging deceit._

_"Lisa. Lisa was the last person I kissed." The tilt of his jaw had been for the team, but the darkness in his glance was for Jack alone. As though asserting that it wasn't too late for him to slip away again, as if he might still soak into the walls of Torchwood and become a ghost.)_

 

"But I didn't let you, and you're not," Jack whispered presently, kissing Ianto's knuckles. The thrum of their psyches against one another was like the best of Kochab's liquored honey, sensuous and slow. Rationally, he knew he would need to build at least a few mental shields soon, for both Ianto's safety and his own. But, just as Ianto's body was already strained from the ritual, Jack knew in his heart that the connection between them required great care. He might have laid the foundations for it long ago, but the true binding was newborn and fragile. Squeezing Ianto's hand, he laid it back on the comforter. "You'll have to be patient with me," he told his sleeping lover. "We were never taught anything about this, except that it was..." _Primitive, hedonistic, vulgar, gluttonous._ "... forbidden." He chuckled dryly, "I'll figure it out." 

Rubbing hard against his temples, the Captain found the need for sleep rushing over him in a relentless wave. He retrieved his mobile from his coat pocket and, forcing his eyes to focus, set the alarm for an hour and a half. Setting it on the nightstand, he found his gaze almost irresistibly drawn to the vacant space beside Ianto, sheets still rumbled from where his own dead weight had rested against them. Biting back his own sense of hysteria, Jack noted that Lan Wei had somehow managed to avoid splashing the covers with a single spot of his blood. Such a morbid talent, though he supposed she had enough practice. 

 

It took every wrenching effort of his own will, but he did not let himself lay down with Ianto. Too soon, too vital-- he was afraid he would not experience the still sleep of old. The only rest he'd gotten recently had been filled with that clutching, violent dream of Lisa in the bathtub, voice filled with human longing and the metallic buzz of hate. Ignoring the prickling of superstition that curled along his spine, Jack carried the rocking chair over by the bed, draping his coat over it and settling back against the wicker curves. He took Ianto's hand once more, needing that tether to a world that no longer burned with loss. He'd sleep here, a mirror of the way Ianto had, once. Sitting by Jack's bedside, accent thick and low over confessions he'd denied even as he spoke, a gift he couldn't bear to have acknowledged. 

"Just rest," he whispered. "It's my turn to keep watch. I know what it's like, Ianto-- coming back. Like glass grinding between your muscles. That heaviness, as if the Void is trying to follow you back. But it's okay now. You were so good, you did just as I asked. Stayed still, and I came and found you, didn't I?" His fingers stroked Ianto's neck, lured back there as if nothing had changed. "My good boy. You know I wasn't trying to punish you, right? Not then, and not now. You were so angry, before..."

 

_("Your punishment was bringing me back."_

_No, no. No._

_Taking that mouth as if he had the right. Ianto, laughing and crying, and they'd sat there on the kitchen floor for what seemed like hours, caught in a stalemate that ended as suddenly as it began when, in unspoken synchronicity, they reached to help each other up._

_Another floor. Kneeling there, defeated._

_"I love you..."_

_And I said 'don't'.)_

 

"I didn't mean 'don't'. Not like that. And I won't insult you by saying it while you're still asleep." Stubbornly, Jack fought down the fierce surge of panic clawing at his insides. The memory of that angry, snarling young man was strong, every line and color true. All that calm, polished demeanor, but no one fought quite like Ianto. Looking down, attempting to distract himself, he held onto the idea that this time things were different. His gaze came to rest on a small stain in the hollow of Ianto's throat-- a single, drop that had somehow been missed, appearing black in the gloom. 

 

Abandoning conscious thought, Jack leaned down and tenderly licked the blood away. 

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GLOSSARY:  
> [+] _Do jeh saai_ \- Thank you (so) much. Particularly used for a 'gift'.  
> [+] _Sheng_ \- 'Creation'. According to I Ching, Sheng (written with the same symbol as 'life') is the force that generates interaction between the five elements.   
> [+] _Ke_ \- 'Destruction'. In I Ching, this is the force that overcomes the interaction of elements generated by _Sheng_. These forces are supposed to be kept in constant but balanced opposition.  
>  [+] In the 1920's, _Kuomintang_ (or Chinese Nationalist Party) were fighting against various powerful warlords in China. In order to further their goals, they came to an agreement with Communist forces also fighting in China. In 1927, under Chiang Kai Shek, they would become an opposing force against the Communists in an attempt to spread past the southern provinces and unify China. The Kuomintang (KMT) are still the dominant political party in Taiwan.   
>  [+] In 1938, the Japanese captured Canton during a campaign to seize important port cities, thus blocking supplies and communication to inner China, which was their next desired target. 
> 
> ... My Chinese History Professor would be so proud of me for remembering all that! Though I very much doubt he would have imagined this use for it. Opps. ^_^;;;


	11. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot and other sundries in this chapter, complete focus on Ianto in the next. Now together in one tasty Wednesday snack! ;-)

The storm broke over Macao at quarter to one on the morning of July 15th. The sky, deepening one last time to a gray-indigo, didn't bother with preliminaries-- the rain came at once, a heavy downpour that was usually a trademark of typhoon season. The bay rolled with its force but, apart from a few uncharacteristic flashes of lightening low in the sky, there was nothing truly remarkable about the summer fury. In the Entertainment District, tourists, wealthy foreigners, and Macao's business elite flicked dull, bored gazes towards the sky. The glitz and glamor of hotels, nightclubs, and casinos quickly provided something more vivid for their eyes, and the rain was just an inconvenience. Officer Sun Gao Man-- Shuang's father-- ducked quickly back into his patrol car, coffee a little more diluted for his trouble. He sipped the overpriced brew, barking at his partner to roll the windows up despite the heat. The heavy shroud of drops blurred the endless neon lights and backlit towers, turning the skyline into a offbeat, cyber-impressionist painting. 

 

Across the bay, near the warehouse district, Hua She Street accepted the downpour with the same reptilian malaise it evinced for everything else. Satellite dishes and TV antennae wavered on their precarious rooftop perches, and the few tenants who bothered with the constant struggle of keeping a tiny balcony garden received a brief respite. The freshly paved street-- which had baked uncomplainingly in the summer heat even as the storm gathered-- still held the warmth of the day. Just a few degrees cooler with the night, the rain sizzled against the blacktop, lifting the thinnest of misty veils. The fog twisted down the strange curves of Hua She Street and its smaller rambling offspring like a white snake. In the courtyard of Number Ten, the single crooked tree lifted its arthritic branches. The water lent it a strange texture, as if it were made of chipped pearl, or perhaps bone.

 

The street itself was possessed of a barely noticeable slope, a very gentle dip that began around Number Three and led one unsuspectingly downward. It was only if one happened to stop at the corner-- where dusty Number Fifteen marked the angle that turned into Fei Duan Road-- that the eye saw over the shoulder the jarring secrecy of descent. Already the gathering pools of rainwater began to run together, swelling the treacherous drains and washing the unsuspecting litter away. Bottles and wrappers were yanked along; the sewer drains roared like gnashing, wide mouths. The rain and debris of human living was consumed, falling away into the tunnels wandered underneath like a cancerous rot. Beneath the buildings and blacktop, the anatomy of Hua She Street endured, older than Macao or Haojing, which it had been centuries before. Its patience was the patience of the earth, which cares not for man; its lazy sprawl spoke of soil that has tasted blood and knows-- as all predators know-- that it need only wait long enough to taste it again.

 

Lan Wei was standing on her tiptoes in her canary yellow kitchen, elbows braced against the sink, when the storm's restless patter fell across her window. The woman herself barely noticed it, too busy tearing at the plastic of a donated blood bag to focus on anything else. The Box was safely stored under her bed, wrapped in silk and locked in an old trunk, sighing in its not-quite satisfied sleep. Wei felt the prickle of its persisting desire on the back of her neck and shuddered. She stood in her underwear and faded, archaic camisole, pale and impossibly compelling in the gloom. Her slim frame shook with hunger and exhaustion-- her hair fell in an inky void around her shoulders, wisps quivering like the coils of Medusa's mane. Usually, she cooked the blood with dumplings, or at least warmed it in her creaky microwave, but the overwhelming force of her appetite blasted away the delicate veils of human pretense. Finally, she simply tore into the bag with her teeth, the slurp of her lips and thin tongue filling and washing against the mute walls. Sucking until the bag crinkled and had nothing left to give, Lan Wei reached for another, and then another after that. In her bedroom, an ancient blossom-covered quilt waited to offer what little solace it could. For now, at least, the animalistic blast of her need drowned both memory and sorrow. Tearing into still another pouch of fluid, she sighed and tilted her head back. Little drops of crimson ran down her chin and neck in her haste to feed, rolling across her breasts like an old lover's sure and familiar touch.

She made no move to wipe it away.

 

 

Jack Harkness, sleeping watchfully at Ianto's side, roused a little. His head, which had tipped back against the wicker rocker, lifted. 

_Please, not again._ The thought sliced through his repose which, while brief, had been blessedly dreamless. His mind surfaced from the tide of REM sleep, but not completely. Exhausted in both body and spirit, he could only founder without direction in that distressingly wide gulf between awareness and true waking. The sound of the rain on the roof pulled forth old, dormant associations. 

 

_(Dirt falling. Thick, rocky clods of it, down onto the lid of a casket. Caskets, for hadn't he stood at more than one funeral and watched the numb, despairing ritual take place over and over again? There was always something so hopeless about the soil as it slipped between fingers, as it fell from a fist that railed against the injustice of Death but could do nothing in the end._

_And, worse still, those terrible flecks of earth against his own face. On his cheeks, his forehead. Holding terribly still as his soldiers, his comrades, hoisted dirt onto the fallen. One more trench forced to serve as impromptu grave. Or the glacially dizzying forests of Belgium during that hideous winter in 1944, the kind that made even the memory of warmth seem pale and incomplete. The stillness of snow and bare trees torn apart by German artillery, men screaming, the totem-trees exploding, and still everything-- even the fire-- was cold.)_

 

The muscles in Jack's body locked up and went still in the centuries-old instinct to 'play dead'. His mouth opened wide, desperate for air, even as his chest tightened with the memory of John, John _laughing_. That mocking tone mingled with Grey's, with the voice that had once been young and trusting, and oh, G-d, he could feel the dirt on his face, they buried him, they left him down there for almost two thousand years! 

"No more, please. Not again," he mumbled, true wakefulness eluding him, leaving him incapable of opening his eyes. His hand, still cradling Ianto's, tightened briefly on the beloved anchor. The lines and shape of that familiar touch found him even in his dreams and, by slow and painful inches, the Captain began to relax. Ianto was here. The slim, long fingers of the other man's hand clutched back for the smallest of seconds, quicker than the flutter of a ghost's eyelash. Another image sifted to the forefront of Jack's mind, buoyed by that fragile new connection. The layered memory of an oft-repeated ritual; feel of Ianto against his back, strong arm across his stomach as the younger man moved inside him and Jack murmured every dirty promise he could think of to feed the pace. A thin, psychic tendril uncurled and embraced Jack's thoughts, as two raindrops collide and merge on a pane of glass. It came from a mind that was still very far away, still adrift in the darker seas beyond sleep, but it was also a mind that was used to protecting in its own careful, unobtrusive way. 

There was no one to see it, but Ianto's eyes moved with sudden rapidity under their pale closed lids. As Jack's pulse and breathing evened again, even that small movement ceased, and Ianto was still once more.

 

 

The apartment Sun Jun Shuang shared with his father was on the third floor, in the building on the right side of the courtyard at Number Ten. The seven year-old was asleep on the top bunk when the rain started, resting on his stomach under his brightly colored dinosaur blanket. His mind-- which was at its most vulnerable when he was dreaming-- caught hold of an image that did not belong to him.

 

_Dirt_ , Shuang whispered in his darkened consciousness. _Burying_. He rummaged through his mental corridors, chasing something more insubstantial than smoke. Dirt was falling on a coffin, on a hole in the ground. The picture was strong, thick and sticky with sorrow. It's discordance chased Shuang into waking with its discordance. He'd never seen a true burial-- Mama had been cremated, in keeping with Buddhist tradition. The bright orange and yellow flames were embroidered painfully in his memory, like thousands of blazing butterflies catching up around her wooden coffin. This dream of falling earth had not lasted more than two minutes, but the feeling was so strong that-- even as the boy suddenly pushed himself up off the mattress-- Shuang scrubbed at his face as if he expected to find dirt on his cheeks. 

 

Groaning, he rolled onto his elbows to peer over the edge of the bunk. The little digital clock on the night stand read 12:50 am, casting a greenish glow on the cellphone that lay beside it. Shuang regarded this new silvery tool with some bemusement-- it seemed to sum up everything about the past week in its tiny, cheap casing. It was 'prepay', Baba said, which didn't mean much to Shuang, though he was given to understand that it wouldn't work for long periods of time. His father had pressed it into his palm earlier in the evening, just after they'd both washed their dinner bowls and left them to dry in the dish rack. Tonight was the first night Baba had gone to work since the 4-5-6, and there had been more strenuously repeated instructions and shakings of Baba's thick finger than the boy cared to remember. His father-- while watchful and caring in that distant, masculine manner modeled by his own male relatives-- had never been one for an abundance of rules or reminders. There was a space between Baba and Shuang, one the child was only peripherally aware of. It was not a terribly wide gulf, or one that was obscured. Instead, they were like two kingdoms that could see each other across the sea, familiar and foreign all at once. Shuang read his father's emotions with the ease of a mystic with a dowsing rod, but that didn't mean what he found always made sense. 

 

This evening, the air had almost shimmered with all of Baba's busy, buzzing worries. The boy himself had been distant, his few safe certainties upheaved like broken bedrock by the apparition in the courtyard. He'd eaten his noodles with a heavy helping of guilt, and it burned his heart. There had been no words between himself and Ming when they parted-- just the awful, grating echo of his panicked accusation.

_("Oh, Ming, why did you say that, before? Why did you say we never see dead-things here!? The gods heard you! You made it come true!")_

Instead, they'd stepped slowly away from each other, each sending quick, furtive looks towards the tree. When it became clear the Blue Ghost wasn't coming back, they'd both bolted for their respective homes without so much as a 'goodnight'. Ming's face had been perfectly calm, a painted dancer's mask, but the set of her jaw had betrayed her hurt. Shuang had seen that twitch of muscle, and known she was biting down on the inside of her cheek. Then she'd turned in a flurry of black hair and clicking plastic sandals and he had run as well, not wanting to be the one alone amongst whatever unknown debris the Blue Ghost might have left. 

 

_She shouldn't have talked to it,_ Shuang reasoned to himself, edging down towards the ladder at the foot of the bed. He navigated the metal rungs easily, dropping to the floor from the third set and landing with a simian carelessness. Coming to the night stand, he picked up the new cellphone, turning it over a few times before losing interest. Dinner had been even more quiet than usual, and Shuang had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts it had taken him a moment to register the fact Baba had started speaking. The older man's voice had been low and tense-- even heavier than when he chastised Shuang for not taking the Tunnel, but without the anger. 

"I _have_ to go to work tonight," Baba had said with uncharacteristic insistence, as though picking up in the middle of an argument with an adult. The boy had looked at him uncomprehendingly, for the thought of Baba _not_ leaving for night shift had never even crossed his mind. The aliens were gone; the doctors had poked and prodded their fill, school was back in session, and even soccer was on offer again-- why _shouldn't_ everything go back to the way it had been? And yet, those strong hands had closed around his slim shoulders as Baba knelt beside him, touching their foreheads together. Shuang was to use the cellphone to call the hospital if he started feeling funny _at all_ , did he understand? Any weird things in the body, any loss of time, or if he should somehow _hear_ the aliens again-- Shuang _must_ call the hospital, and then Baba's work mobile. 

"Baba," the boy muttered hesitantly, as if tiptoeing around a giant. "The aliens are _gone_. The TV and the teachers said so."

"Huh!" His father let loose with a string of curses he never would have uttered in Mama's presence. "And who told the TV and the teachers all this wonderful news? Lying English dogs, deceitful sellers of children who kept secrets for over forty years! What a world we live in!" Then, he lifted Shuang's chin with one large thumb. "You listen to me, son. If those demons are gone, that's all very good. But if a man I've been chasing starts waving a gun at me, I don't wait to see if he feels like shooting me. I shoot him. Got it?"

"Yes, Baba." The dutiful but seemingly earnest response had soothed the older man, which had been Shuang's goal. The boy understood that his father was speaking of caution, of what Mama called ' _self-preservation_ ' during their talks about dead-things and when it was okay to lie. But Shuang didn't have a gun and, anyway, he hardly thought one would work on aliens. They almost never did in movies. He'd never speak the words to his father, but Shuang had far more pressing concerns than the truthfulness of Great Britain amongst the international community.

 

Presently, Shuang turned his gaze away from the mobile and the alarm clock, looking instead at the single, silver picture frame propped against the wall. He picked it up, holding it carefully between both hands and bringing it close. In the diffuse illumination of the city's many lights, the details were blurred, but Shuang knew them all by heart. This was Mama, and the sight was so familiar that his mind's eye filled in the gaps effortlessly. 

"There was a ghost on Hua She Street," he said softly. "Or, at least, something _like_ a ghost." In the picture, Mama stood frozen forever, smiling. She was standing by a fountain-- much younger than even the young mother Shuang had known-- arms hidden girlishly behind her back. Her short hair lifted a little in the endless breeze, pulled back by one of the many ribbon headbands she preferred. She was wearing a short green dress, one low heel canted outward, and her smile was one he knew well. _I've got a secret,_ that playful grin said, _and I'm not gonna tell you. But you're welcome to guess._ Resisting the urge to hug the frame to his chest, Shuang instead set it back on the night stand. In a fit of restless frustration, he flopped down on the hard wood floor, fisting his hands in his red pajama bottoms. 

" _Tian sha de e mo_!" That was a curse he'd learned from some of the older boys at school, but there was no one to scold him for it here. No, sir-- here was Sun Jun Shuang, all safely locked and bolted in Apartment 307, with the mobile and all his father's new concerns. Not to mention the bits of ghost-dirt from his dreams. Screwing his mouth shut tightly, eyes burning, he locked up his body to keep from kicking and screaming. He didn't even _like_ that picture of Mama all that much. She was so pretty when she smiled, but that was an old picture, and Shuang knew who that long-ago woman was really grinning at. That was College-Mama, and the sparkle in her eyes was for College-Baba, who stood behind the camera lens. The seemingly happy, carefree woman in the green dress was how Baba remembered Sun Zhu Liao. Shuang alone understood the secret isolation, the vast skies of her inner world lit by flashes of cheerful bravado-- it changed the picture in such a way that he and Baba might as well have known two completely different women. A little black kernel of resentment flickered in his child's heart, though Shuang was not capable of truly comprehending it. He only knew that he was alone, that he'd yelled at Ming and now wished he hadn't. Baba could worry about distant aliens and other television concerns, but all of that was vague and unreal to Shuang. Theory, wispy as fairytale or games of let's pretend. The world itself wasn't real, because Hua She Street _was_ the world. 

 

Muttering further samples of borrowed foul language, Shuang hauled himself up and walked towards the window by the door. The glass was glazed here, too, but he only had to stand on his tiptoes to reach the latch that opened the lower pane. Pushing at his already short pajama sleeves, he worked to inch the window open, peering up out over the sill. The rain roared down through the spaces between the tall buildings, splashing off railings and concrete walkways. The courtyard was already full of big puddles that oozed between the cobblestone. Shuang took in the scene with careful attention, eyes searching for the blaze of the Blue Ghost, or any dead-things that might-- suddenly alerted to the breach in his sanctuary-- have crawled in from outside. For all his fear, there was nothing, not even a shimmering remnant of the ghost's dark blue corona.

_Except_ , he considered with boyish cynicism, _it wasn't really a ghost. It had a color, and dead-things don't have those. 'Ghost' is just a good word to use, like when Baba or the people on TV say 'demons' and mean 'aliens'. Why are you here, Daaihlou?_ He flinched a little, well aware he'd fussed at Ming for using the same familiarity. _Please go away. I'm sorry you're lost, or dead, or whatever you are, but please go._

Unwillingly, his eyes lifted from the courtyard to the building across the way. The window on the far corner of the fourth floor was still lit, a single blazing square in the otherwise darkened hulk. Ming's window. 

_She has to forgive me._ This thought did not quite reach the surface of Shuang's mind. For all his secret life and extrasensory gifts, he was still just a boy of seven. He loved Ming, but was far from a time when that could be articulated in any coherent way. The feeling was there, though, rippling in fathomless reaches of his mind. _She_ has _to, because she can't leave me, too._

Then, with that odd mixture of determination and practicality he'd inherited from each of his parents, Sun Jun Shuang visited the bathroom and finally climbed back into bed. 

 

 

Across the courtyard, awash blazing light of the apartment she shared with her mother, Yao He Ming also heard the tinkling stampede of the summer downpour. In the far corner, the television blared a distressingly cheerful jingle, echoing around the small room as the late-night station switched away from the news and on to one of seemingly endless programs about gambling. Ming looked up briefly from where she sat on the small bed, her face a study of doll-like serenity. Surrounded by mismatched sheets and swimming in one of her mother's old nightgowns, the girl froze completely. Her eyes were the only part of her that moved, taking in her surroundings with a caution so deep it was more than instinct. 

Some distance away, Ming's mother lay stretched out on the sofa, oblivious to the television's blather or the sudden roar of the storm. She'd drifted off earlier in the evening, limbs arranged in a thoughtless-- and somewhat sloppy-- echo of her usual elegant poise. The linen of her skirt road up ever so slightly, and her right hand still cradled the empty globe of a wine glass. 

Ming gazed on this woman, her mother, whose body very deliberately invited the lustful caress of a man's gaze. Her thin arms pickled pins-and-needles pain from where Mother's manicured nails had pinched earlier in the evening. Rubbing absently at her already bruising skin, the child thought, ' _She fell asleep in her nylons. Oh, she's going to be cross.'_

 

In a little while, Ming would rise to gather the wreckage of cigarette butts that kept company with Mother, as well as her glass and the long-necked green bottle from which her favorite vice flowed. The girl would rinse everything carefully and perform all the little rituals that would put the apartment to rights-- up to and including setting out one of her mother's carefully tailored skirt and blouse combinations for the next day. Here, however, as the clock lurched with tired determination towards 1 AM, Ming snatched a bit of the night for herself. Her tiny fingers played over the tin she held in her lap, carefully plucking up each of her precious art pencils without making a sound. Most of them were little more than nubs, whittled down by her passion for the blank two dimensional world she could fill by her own hand. Each pencil she selected was set in a line with the others, forming an orderly arrangement on the edge of her emerald nightgown. She looked at the colors she had arranged with a philosopher's patient contemplation, examining each shade of blue. One of these was labeled _lantian_ , and that was the one she curled in her tiny fist. Gray, brown, and her ridiculously small shard of peach joined it quickly-- Ming put the others away and reached for her art pad. 

_Lantian_ , she thought, ignoring the twist in her heart that echoed with Shuang's words. _That was the color. The Blue Ghost._

Angling the pencil against her paper, Ming began to draw. 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GLOSSARY:  
> [+] _Haojing_ \- 'Oyster mirror'. The original name for Macao. The current title for the port is thought to come from the name of a temple founded there, 'A-Ma-Gao'. The temple was built to honor the goddess Matsu, who protected sailors and fishermen.  
> [+] _Tian sha de e mo_ \- 'G-ddamn monsters'. A curse.  
> [+] _Daaih louh_ \- lit, Elder brother. Also used as respect for a male acquaintance younger than one's father.  
> [+] _Lantian_ \- 'sky blue' or 'azure blue'.


	12. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Incidentally, this chapter is still one of my favorites among all the things I've written. ;-)

_(Can you be good for me, Ianto-- my good boy? It'll be just like hide and seek. Don't go wandering, and I'll find you.)_

 

He's caught in a sleep that is deeper than slumber; his dreams run underneath the mortal nightscape, endless subterranean tunnels that have never known light. This is the place where lightning burns the sand to glass; the wild black ocean lit by a burning moon; the thin slice of nothing that separates your shadow from the wall.

_(Behold, this is the perilous Land of In-Between.)_

It is strange, but ultimately finite, an escape from the directionless maelstrom of

_(the Void)_

before. Here, in the calm waters, he is away from the roiling, lumbering things that slithered underneath the more-than-darkness, but he is not safe. The burning moons have a tide, the dry Martian lakebed hides a secret well, and everything, everything is just red-hot shards of coal. Down here, unseen by the living, are totems that defy the waves-- they are worn clean of name and memory, but still incontrovertibly etched with the warning everything comes with a price. 

 

He founders, he fights for grip. The walls of the city are high and narrow, it's always sunset and the streets have no names. Something has drawn him back to this place of absolute stasis-- something is drawing him still. He feels the strength of the cord, each ripple of twisted silk as fine and inflexible as pure steel. It is so much a part of him that he cannot tell from whence it stems, save in the dark cavities behind the metaphorical' heart'. A red cord, run through with gold

_(because Jack is gold. when he kisses you, when he touches your hands as you pass out coffee, when he smiles at you over the unconscious shape of a Weevil, he is everything brilliant and it almost hurts to look)_

as it pulls, inscribed with words

_(tsazhou)_

he does not understand. 

 

The dimensions here don't work; the geometry is all wrong and each angle makes him feel like he's slipping, slipping back into the No-Thing, where he'd been still and quiet,

_(Jack asked you to)_

waiting. And, ever so far away, something to pierce that intolerable Void-- a wordless promise, a whisper. It is the space between the light and the shadow it casts, between the stars whose distances are full of deceit. Tt is what lies Beyond. For every cynic shouting about accidents of chemistry and keeping meat fresh, there is this; the soft song to negate the No-thing, to defy and say, _'No, there is more'._

 

The knowledge slips between his fingers; gone from him in blessing, for certainty and mortality do not mix. The binding pulls, guides him through the maze, and Iant does not-- _cannot_ \-- resist,

_(goddamn him, damn those blue eyes and conspiratorial smile, he has you cut down to the quivering muscle and he's always known)_

just moves, wordless, half-resentful, unarmed by his own feelings. 'Love' is such a paltry word. Noun or verb, it is stupid and small and worn from overuse. The letters can't hold this feeling, the vowels burst from the heat, but he says it because

_(you're dying)_

it's the only thing he has. 

 

He is  
_(Jones, Ianto Jones.)_  
the boy sitting in the snow by the back garden wall  
the student who absorbs but does not speak; correlating, devouring knowledge  
the son cradling his mother's hand in the too-white hospital  
the teenager who calmly holds his arms out so the officer can cuff him for shoplifting  
the young man who feels the shape and order of his archives like the curves of a secret mistress  
the panicked lover in the burning, smoke-lit-red chaos of Canary Wharf.

 

_("Lisa died at Torchwood One," you say, sitting slumped and undignified on your kitchen floor. Jack is some ways away, legs folded, oddly calm. He says nothing-- and better than that, his eyes say nothing-- but the feel of his kiss burns on your mouth like a brand. You want to fight, but you're exhausted. You want to find a chink, just a small one, in the Captain's powerful facade. Anger or resentment, some sort of weakness you can stir and needle until he does Retcon you and every acidic moment of this nightmare dissolves into chemical white. You rally, one last time over the top, and whisper, "_I_ died at Torchwood One." Except that's not exactly true, and Jack knows it._

_"Liar," Harkness says, but there's no heat in the word. Only something, hidden behind that handsome face, that aches and aches and cannot stop aching. It's brief, gone as soon as you realize you've seen it, but that look lives in your memory like his touch on your skin._

_"I don't sleep through the night," you tell him, hating yourself for speaking but unable to stop. "I keep waking up because it's time for her meds." More than that, it's in your jumbled dreams. A blur, an infection, so that every half-conscious thought is about changing the IV, alternating electrical currents, and whether or not you can convince her to try keeping some sort of real food down. It's with you, this ghastly knowledge of failure, it rapes you with sure fingers every time you close your eyes._

_"You'll sleep," Jack says. He's close again, and he sounds far too certain. You should never have taken your eyes off him-- you_ know _better-- but here he is, kneeling next to you by the stove. His hand is warm on the back of your neck, wide and sure and strong. Like the flutter of a thoughtless moth, his other hand returns to your pulse, tracing._

_"I shouldn't let you touch me," you say, not so much to him as to your own malfunctioning gut. There's that twitch of Jack's lips, not quite a smile-- he leans over and presses those lips to your forehead in a quick, chaste kiss. Half-offended and half-touched, you stare at him as he stands, reaching out a hand to help you up. Logic and order, plan upon careful plan, and it's all come down to Jack standing in your kitchen, the only vibrant thing in your colorless flat. You could slap his hand away now-- the endlessly shifting, calculating portion of your mind encourages this. If you came at him with your not-inconsiderable right hook, you might just make him angry enough, disgusted enough to end this today._

Bite me once, shame on you _, or so the saying goes. It's Mam's voice-- it might be rational and it might not-- but the echo is real._ Bite me twice... __

_"Shame on me," you whisper, so softly you know Jack doesn't hear you. And, without any conscious thought behind it, your hand is in his. He pulls you up, holding your fingers with an odd sort of care, and you tell yourself you have just made a choice._

_Except you really_ are _a liar; you know there was never any choice at all.)_

 

Ianto sees all this, the perfect strand of causality and memory welded as one. Like an artfully forged chain, it leads forward and back, the line of his life the same as the grooves in his palm. He struggles a little against this small but vital pivot-- there's more, but the grid of the map is faded and he can't

_(doesn't want to)_

remember.

 

There's Jack, of course. Jack, working his way under the skin, slowly becoming as much a part of the body as vein or bone. Always smiling, flirting, taking more than Ianto was ever willing to give. The shape of this new loyalty is the curve of Jack's back against his chest, all arrogant charm and jarringly selfish sacrifice. The scars begin to close over but Ianto wants to keep digging at them, keep them infected because, if he lets them heal, he'll lose his last protection. 

 

Time moves

_(differently for Jack)_

relentlessly. It makes quick, thumbnail sketches of precious intimacy; it watches Gwen waver between Torchwood and the outside world; it steals Tosh and kills Owen twice over, as if certain it didn't get it right the first time. No Torchwood employee has ever lived to draw their pension-- he is twenty-six and treading water, hyperaware of every risk and somehow insanely at peace. He _(loves)_ cares for a man who can slip through Death's fingers, but Ianto knows that-- in his case-- when the house lights go down, that's it. Show's over, this is the point of termination, no departures or arrivals forevermore. 

 

The pragmatism and fantastic order of Ianto's soul make this knowledge endurable-- make it rational. He has always been-- and will always be-- at his most relaxed when everything is in its place. Yet there's a hidden shard of romanticism in him, a vein of precious metal running through the practical earth. It gives him his creativity, his grasp of the abstract, his affection for the sarcastic and the absurd. And, here in the In-Between Lands, it is what saves him. He moves towards that terminal moment etched on his soul, the final line on the monolith and-- though he is afraid-- he is also stubbornly himself.

_("There's steel in you," Jack remarked once, after you disobeyed orders and subtly led Gwen to Flat Holm. Not surprised, but admiring. Peeling away your artfully tucked suit, kissing until your lips are bruised and you still climbed over him, forced him down, asking for more. You struggled against one another, half-irritated and half-playful, and he said, "Some metals are stronger than their forge.")_

 

So here it is: and what's to be scared of? He knows its the end, but Jack is with him. Here, huddled together on the wonderland tile of Thames House, Jack holds him and asks him to stay. Ianto's chest hurts

_(he can't breathe)_

and he has to say it

_(don't, Jack says don't)_

but he also has to be honest

_('A thousand years time, you won't remember my name')_

and that's alright. 

_(it isn't)_

What is death but the final settling of accounts, the heart weighed against a feather, the River of Lethe that leads to the next world? Provided, of course, that Ianto believes any of these things. If there's fear in him, it stems from this, from knowing the gate will close behind him and there will be no going back.

 

He is not surprised that Jack is the last thing he sees-- he's bemused and oddly grateful, and he has to close his eyes. Just this room, the tile floor, frozen forever, a blip in time. 

 

There isn't supposed to be an 'and then'.

 

 

_(This is the Land of In-Between, the City called No-Place, where the clocks have no hands and every direction is the same. Here, it is always sunset and the streets cry out beneath your feet. You can feel the falseness of the image, practically see the stroke of the brush as the mind tries desperately to paint a perception. The colors are wrong and the street signs are grotesque smears of ink, but the alternative is darkness, which is no choice at all.)_

 

Thing is, he _knows_ that this is wrong. He knows it, feels it with the rush-and-pulse of his unexpected awareness, but he cannot make the knowledge stick. It slips through his hands, slithers

_(skin that's cold and slightly clammy)_

off defiantly

_(muscles that tighten, no longer soft; oh, flesh of the newly dead!)_

and leaves him lost, like a pilgrim dizzied by a sky full of alien stars.

 

Ianto doesn't want to look at this, doesn't think he can bear to. Each bleeding shard of memory is a part of him, but that is cold comfort indeed. One carries these things; everyone carries these things. Bright little buttons and dark bits of rock that catch a child's eye, pieces of memory and life, weighing heavy in the pockets of the heart and mind. Who wants to look at them all at once-- the moments of joy mixed in the withering regret, small flecks of pettiness, of stolen comfort, and all those things we hush away behind the door called FORGET? They are present within Ianto, they are timeless and immediate. Here, in the In-Between, every single one of them is happening Now. 

 

He's falling off the swing because Da pushed him too hard; he's running across the Plass, desperate to reach the Hub and find Lisa before anyone else can. He's the toddler held on his mother's hip while she dances, holding his hand and singing 'What Becomes of the Broken Hearted'. Mam never could sing with that squeaky voice of hers, but to his infant's heart it is beautiful. He sees now the things about her he'd forgotten-- the curve of her breast for his toothless mouth, that flash of almost-envy on her face as Da and Rhiannon leaned close, Mam insisting he sit there until he finished his supper, thank you very much young man. It's all too much, and it won't stop. Here is the feeling of shame when the upper level boys take his uniform pants during gym. Here is the hard-on he got while shoplifting. Here is the flinch of hatred he felt, awake for days on end, fixing the wiring on Lisa's Conversion Unit while she screamed at him to hurry up. The feel of the gun's trigger beneath his finger, the look on Owen's face as he fell back with the bullet's force. The chill in his gut while Gwen sat there, serene as any marble angel, holding Jack's hand in the morgue. Here, and here, and here, here, **here**.

 

_(A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.)_

Gwen had that printed on a magnet, one she kept stuck to the top drawer of her desk. Only Gwen Cooper would bring a thing like that into Torchwood-- one of those kitschy, well-meaning bits of pseudo-wisdom pinned up like some weird marriage of talisman and granny's ancient sampler. So yes, he took that magnet, pocketed it with a practiced twist of the wrist and ended up throwing it into Cardiff Bay. Ianto was living each one of those steps, a week into his release from full suspension and return to 'light' duties. Each agonizing pressure point on ankle and heel, every lurch forward through the buzz of his teammates' resentment and suspicion. Those fake-gold enamel words mocked him with every round of coffee or cleaning-- he stole the magnet like he stole the videogame he was busted for, and the two others no one ever discovered.

 

The yearning for time overwhelms him-- he longs for his stopwatch so earnestly that he can almost feel its weight in his palm. He needs it, for there must be reason and measurement in this place. Or is this hell, that he must keep looking at these broken reflections, admitting to them, with no hope of reprieve?

And he will admit to them-- he will own them all. 'Confession is good for the soul', as Da always said (usually while tapping the ruler against the table), so let's have at it, and why not?

 

_(Yes, you held onto Jack's RAF coat after Abaddon, clutching it for comfort and the lingering ghost of scent. When you cried, cradling Lisa's warped and wired remains, you knew deep mourning-- but you also, in that final reserve of rationality, knew relief. You lied to Da, limping your way home from school, and so much more terrible than the beating was the fact he readily believed you simply fell. The night-- just the once-- you and Tosh spent cuddled up together on the sofa, both of you lonely and drunk and more than a little afraid. And yes, when you took yourself in hand, even during Jack's vanished months, the first thing that sprung to your hungry mind's eye was the feel of him, pressing into you, holding you, and the shape of his mouth when he smiled and went down._

_Da was always pushing you, always telling you to buck up and be a man. You tried. You went for quiet endurance, and Lisa always teased that you were the strong, silent type. You were properly mortified when Jack took your hand in public, despite pool of warmth in your heart, and-- though you gave him your loyalty-- you never, ever expected him to say the words._

_If you wanted it, if you wished he would... well, you were good at hiding things, even from yourself.)_

 

It's true, it's real. All of it, whether Ianto likes it or not. He gazes on himself, the sum of time and deed and memory, weighed here in a land where nothing has a name. This is Knowledge, the fruit of the Tree in the Garden, red skin stretched to bursting with strange seeds. That image sticks with him, overwhelms the terrible intimacy of being forced to examine himself. He turns it over, heavy as it is with the echoes of 'thou shalt not'. Hasn't he always though Jack had a face like an archangel, like a rebel who'd bitten into the fruit and cared not? There was the Tree of Knowledge, but there was also...

_(the Tree of Eternal Life)_

 

The tree. 

Something ephemeral changes, some firming of texture or brightening of color that leaves Ianto breathless. He is awake and asleep, he is present and not, in some impossible marriage of light and shadow. Opening eyes that are not quite eyes, he sees the tree. It's a stunted, twisted little thing-- white like

_(ghost wood)_

marble. Though he sees it, it is far more important to note that _it sees him._ There are more words

_("Daaih lou!")_  
he doesn't understand, before one last merciful crash of red-and-gold pulls him under and bears him away. 

 

Pulled on this swell of affection, of need, he is as one caught by the massive force of a wave. The very definition of the word 'possessed'. Wanted, ardently anticipated, Ianto knows he must answer. He is lifted, he is carried, and the arms that hold him belong to Jack. That's good, that's more than Ianto would have asked for; Jack's voice reaches him from

_(where?)_

fathoms off,

_('I told you I'd come for you, Ianto. I told you I wouldn't forget')_

sometimes intelligible, sometimes lost in a beautiful cascade of foreign sounds. The play of that beloved tenor draws him, recalls touch and warmth against his lips and jaw. He drinks of it, deeply, lets it bind his hands with stabs of heady desire. It is Jack, always Jack, the arc of that truism through the last years of his own life is as comforting as it is deeply terrible. Somehow, Jack has reached him, soothed a pain too overwhelming to register until it began to ease. There is touch in this narrow kingdom; the siege is over and the walls have come down. Ianto is found-- not lost, but found! 

 

As he drinks and dreams, Ianto Jones envisions the weight of a beautiful, ripe ruby orb in his hand. The curve of the fruit is sensual, almost lit from within by a gold so familiar that it takes his breath away.

 

He bites into it, and it tastes so sweet. 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GLOSSARY:  
> [+] "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?" by Jimmy Ruffin (1966).  
> [+] _Daaih louh_ \- lit, Elder brother. Also used as respect for a male acquaintance younger than one's father.  
> [+] _Tsazhou_ \- this one, I made up. From Boeshane, 'Bound One'.


	13. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more, and then we hit the new stuff. Which means its a good I've finished typing it up. ^^'

Jack Harkness did not stir or fumble towards consciousness, this time. Instead, he came to wakefulness without transition, abandoning the dreamless black to open his eyes. The shadows and colors that greeted him came so suddenly that they did not, at first, make sense. A swath of navy blue, the sound of creaking wood, the texture of linen smooth against his cheek-- all of these were jarring and without weight. He understood the graceful lines of the hand he held, however, and that quickly cleared the static disrupting memory. Every last bolt of context slotted into place with quick, ruthless efficiency, leaving the burden of his exhaustion to rest on his body alone. Scrubbing at his face with his free hand, Jack propped himself up on his elbows. The clock on the nightstand read 1:42 AM, just handful of minutes before the alarm he'd contentiously set on his mobile. He'd slumped forward at some point in his sleep, and now his upper body bridged the space between the rocking chair and the bed. With a groan, Jack readjusted his hips and sat up fully, his gaze drawn at once to the man on the bed. Ianto's face was youthful, almost otherworldly in his repose. The little bit of stubble, the cut on his cheek, even the sparse beads of sweat from the too-close night-- none of those could detract from the shape, the aliveness that burned indigo-hot within flesh that finally breathed again. For a moment, Jack's mind conjured the sleeping statues on Eterni Gemelli. Twin moons, famous throughout the galaxy, where mystics absorbed the passion of the recently bereaved to sculpt final images of the loved dead. The priest-artisans plied their chisels with empathic skill, whole temple caverns filled with sleeping lovers, carved into the living rock. 

On the heels of that thought came a sudden, powerful wave of anger, so unfamiliar to the captain that he rocked back on his heels. It came just as a chisel's sharp edge-- the fear was harsh and unwieldy, but the aim was quick and sure. Like pricks of sensation returning to numbed fingers, it soaked against him unpleasantly, a childlike superstition of the under-mind. That current below the rational; chanting, whistling in graveyards, looking for portents and reading signs in the motion of the midnight sky.

 

_('Step on a crack, break your mother's back! Step on a line, break your father's spine!' That was Alice, coltishly young, the Melissa-of-Before. All freckles and grazed knees, drawing pinwheels and hearts in green sidewalk chalk. Skipping rope with her friends, lacing arms, picking petals off flowers and looking for the pattern of luck.)_

 

The priest-artists did not know Ianto's face, and they never would. The ghost-glow of their chosen marble would never curve itself to the line of his jaw, or cling to the wry tilt of his mouth. UNIT didn't have him, locked and numbered and relegated to the ranks of inconvenient evidence, just another source of tissue to study and dissect. And Death? That coy, all-too-knowing Bitch Goddess of Boeshane shadow plays? Well, her hands had been pried loose. Pitiless tendrils of the Void have been banished; the loom cut free of the rotting thread. 

Ianto was _here_.

 

_('You die. You die like a dog.'_

_Oh, those _words_! Rank and grinding on your tongue, but you said them. If there was a tremor in the vessels of your heart, you just diverted your gaze and spoke anyway. Never once paying heed to the relentless death-engine of fate rushing ever closer; no thought for the eye of some malicious god who might hear the spurious invocation and, in the manner of all great powers, hasten the inevitable because it _could_._

_You spoke the damning phrase, and laughed.)_

 

"I didn't mean it," Jack whispered earnestly. Leaning over, he cupped Ianto's cheek and kissed the younger man, lingering over the feel of living warmth, the tentative pucker made even in the veil of sleep. Ianto sighed. It was soundless thing, but also one that smelled coppery, the exhale with too much autumn. Jack breathed it in anyway, ridiculously pleased. He stroked and petted the young man's hair. And if he was curled over the form of his lover the way a dragon crouches over a single jeweled egg? What of it? There was no one to see; the apartment was dark and his own eyes closed, blotting out the physical in favor of the hush-wave feeling of Ianto's mind. His chest swelled and his wrist ached, delicious and shadowy-sweet. 

 

 

Rubbing absently at his cuff, Jack pushed himself gently away, edging between the rocking chair and the bed. There was a faint, oily puddle of illumination in the kitchen-- the bulb installed over the stove cast a yellowed light that matched its age. Lan Wei had done some reorganizing, all of which Jack catalogued with a single glance. The few dishes he'd purchased were stacked neatly in the cupboard, and two jarringly orange post-it notes clung to the refrigerator. Such a fussy, helpful tidying of things seemed uncharacteristic of the woman, but it struck Jack more as an unconscious attention to detail than anything else. The little orange notes confirmed it. Wei's phone number was written across the first, large romanized letters underscored with a smaller, ruthlessly slashed row of Chinese characters. 'Do not bother me unnecessarily!', they admonished, exclamation point dangling oddly at the end. The second note was slapped over the corner of the first, a lopsided afterthought. It contained a time and microwave setting, which drew a bemused, half-hopeless chuckle from captain himself. The jars of blood were indeed lined up neatly on the refrigerator's top shelf, sitting patiently next to the styrofoam container of Jack's leftover noodles. Shaking his head, Jack selected one of them at random, feeling the cold liquid weight like a brand across his palm. 

 

There were two mugs in the cupboard, fruits of his afternoon shopping trip. The events of day itself seemed now almost physically distant, like landmarks glimpsed across sweltering blacktop. Pulling out the slim, black-and-white striped coffee cup, he set it on the counter and busied himself with carefully twisting off the jar's lid. There was very little give-- Wei had filled the glass almost to overflowing-- and Harkness balanced it carefully over the sink. Red, bottomless red,

_(bloodlight)_

undulating just a little as the cool jar became slippery in Jack's warm hand. He set it firmly on the counter, leaning in almost unwillingly to take it in its acrid scent. Still metallic, despite the chill, almost like bottled lightning. It was what it was, a jar of blood, and Jack didn't think it smelled any different from countless other gallons he'd been exposed to. _Just_ blood; just _blood_. Funny how the emphasis worked, how veins and flesh could be exchanged for vials and industrial bags, how this liquid could slide against a doctor's safely gloved hand or ooze around the ruthless point of a bullet. 

 

_(Is this wrong too, Doctor? Is the shade off, just a bit? Too dark, too light, too vermillion, in some way Owen or Martha could never detect? Does it smell wrong, potent like a clumsily poisoned drink? Would it burn you like acid, does it pump in a backwards dance against my heart?_

_Rose, lit with gold, blazing more brightly than the heart of a thousand suns._

_Is this something I dreamed, or something I made up to fit what you told me? The TARDIS, crying out when I touched her, and your gruff voice in a stale corner of Martha's apartment. You said she did it out of love.)_

 

With a derisive snort, Jack took a spoon and began cautiously ladling blood into the mug. It was as red as anyone else's in the warm summer night, just as blue running in the vein. And it paid. As Lan Wei said, it was the universe's oldest form of currency; in this case, Jack's coin was good. Pay, and pay, and keep on paying. If he bore the mark of his terrible difference somewhere in or on his body, Jack thought with cynical malice, it certainly wasn't here. 

Mug half full, the captain cooked it precisely to the instructions he'd been given, all the while fishing in his pocket for the eyedropper. Experimentally, he dipped the vial in and tested a drop of the now-warm liquid on the back of his hand. The heat was just enough to be pleasant and a long ways from scalding. Satisfied, he made an absent move to wipe it away with his sleeve. Bloodstains, however, were quite difficult to remove-- something he'd been reminded of at length. Ianto had been convinced they could clothe a nation in the number of pale blue shirts Jack ruined-- to say nothing of the danger his mere presence brought to windows, upholstery, and an impressive assortment of the Welshman's ties. Instead, the captain diligently washed his hands and replaced the jar in the 'fridge.

 

"See, Ianto?" he teased, voice forcibly light as he set the mug on the nightstand and climbed back in bed. "I may be a bit thick, but I can learn my lessons. Mindful of stains, can you imagine?" Slipping under the comforter, he propped himself up against the headboard, gently drawing his lover's slack form up against his chest. Just as he had when he'd first awakened, Jack cradled the younger man against the crook of his shoulder, taking pains to support the head and neck. "I won't leave towels on the floor either." His whisper was almost thunderous in the rain-soaked night. The chill of Cardiff was absent, but the intimate quiet pulled his mind back to evenings in the Hub or the SUV. The sound of rain on the roof or the cascade of the towering fountain, the leathery flutter of Myfawny's wings as she slept and dreamed whatever passed for pteradon dreams. "I'll even take in a rugby match," he wheedled, though all playfulness has drained from his voice. "I know you're with me, Ianto. I can feel you in here." Rolling his head against his shoulders, Jack relished that tingling at the base of his skull, that sense of being _connected_. His wrist throbbed in concert, the buzz of arousal just barely below the firming up of flesh. 

 

 

It took some doing, but Jack eventually settled on resting the mug between his knees. Massaging Ianto's jaw, he delicately pressed just a few drops past the sleeping lips. There came an echoing sensation, no less surprising for its faintness. Uncertain, Jack repeated the procedure, and was rewarded with a slight, unconscious swallow from the patient. 

"Come back," he murmured, filling the vial a little more with each successive turn. He couldn't swallow, could barely breathe; it felt like the air was

_(stale. stale in the gymnasium, in Thames house; redolent of murder)_

somehow out of reach. The muscles in his body locked up; the captain kept his grip from tightening on Ianto's arm only by sheer force of will. It was like one of his nightmares after the Master, after Grey. How the colors would get thick and sticky, unreal, waiting to slither when he looked away, and he hadn't been able to stand sleeping, it made him feel like itching his skin 'til it bled. Passing even on the small amount of sleep he did need, he'd endured periods of wakefulness so protracted that he couldn't tell the difference between the sensations of his fear and the symptoms of sleep deprivation. 

_(rest, jack. i'll wear you out, just rest.)_

"Yeah," Harkness chocked out presently, watching in fascination as Ianto's lips puckered ever so slightly. Anticipating the tip of the eyedropper, the waiting trickle of blood. "I hadn't been bullied into sleeping like that in a long time. Probably since I was young enough for actual naps." But there was Ianto; mistrustful after Jack's return, or still aching after the loss of Tosh and Owen, but absolutely immovable. The firm hand in the velvet glove. Curving, demanding, against Jack's back-- filling him up, wearing him down from the inside out until they rested together, until the Welshman was a pleasant weight and there were no dreams of dirt or laughing black orbs. 'Perpetual Torchwood Stress Disorder', Ianto had called it, with that knife's edge of black humor playing in his voice. He'd said as much to Toshiko once, during one of her all-night programing jags. Jack could picture them clearly, laughing, clutching each other in sudden hilarity. Bending helplessly in fresh giggles when Tosh added, 'there's a reason psychiatric care isn't covered in our benefits.' 

 

_(Toshiko knows where to spot Jack, when the Captain starts getting cagey. Ianto thinks he stalks like some big jungle cat up on those roofs, back and forth, as if the whole of the earth isn't quite big enough for him. And maybe its not. His heart feels oddly still and heavy when he sees that visage on the CCTV, but Tosh deftly entertains Owen and distracts Gwen. She gives him coordinates and a demure little smile that can't quite hide the devious little twinkle in her eye. And Ianto goes to Jack, every time, always distantly wondering how an entire planet can make one feel trapped.)_

That last bit did not belong to Jack, and he knew it. The impression was visually indistinct, bright bits of scattered mosaic tile, heavy with the sense of being more than just one memory. Instinctively, Jack reached out for it, that wisp of Ianto's dreaming thoughts which had, perhaps, responded to the turn of his own. It was gone just as quickly, the flash of quicksilver in water. 

"Stay," he implored, kissing the word into Ianto's hair. "Stay, stay." Nothing, just the faint wash of waves, his psyche's way of registering his lover's presence. The tide in the darkness, the rush of blood in the heart, the pounding of harsh winter storms against the iridium spires of Boeshane. Jack kept dipping into the mug-- more slowly now, to match the rhythm of Ianto's swallows. The eyedropper scraped against the bottom of the cup, but he worked to get every last bit. He watched what he was doing without actually seeing, focused inward, straining towards anything that might be decipherable in amidst the sound of the tide.

 

_(Tide, time and tide. The stopwatch in Mam's hand as she shows him how it works. He'd found it wedged in the back of one of grandda's antique desks, and she said he could keep it. Fair salvage. Buried treasure and ships run aground. Marooned. Tiny patches of land in the ocean; This Island Earth. He saw that with Da at the Electrode. The slave-aliens frighten him badly as a child, though he sees the film again in college and is shocked by how clumsy and ridiculous they are. Da smokes heavily on the way home and says he indulged Ianto-- Vaughn Jones certainly doesn't have a yen for science fiction.)_

 

Less coherent now, but Jack couldn't help pushing. He wanted Ianto to be more than simply present; he wanted him to respond. Too much to ask, perhaps, but he'd never been very good making do with what he was given, always reaching out with the other hand for more. It was upon him now-- that grasping feeling, the burning in his wrist, pleasure/pain too close the line. 

 

_(Burning. The moons are burning; they are aflame. They light the black ocean, the churning cacophony of waves. No tide here, for the water is too deep. Ebony darker than the meaning of the word-- it's not an ocean, it's a block of stone! The stone makes a wall and the wall makes a city, the city called Nowhere in the desert called No Place. The streets are narrow and dark, the natives are small shadows that twitter like birds._

_Narrow and dark. Black and gold. Chess board tile, Thames House tile, it paves every street and every street leads to here, where the tree towers white and digs its roots into the linoleum with vengeful zest.)_

 

Letting the eyedropper fall in the now empty mug, Jack brought his free hand up to fist against his forehead. His skull ached; it felt as if every fold of brain tissue had its own prickling agony. For all that, Ianto's presence had become very dim, close but decisively out of reach. 

"Sorry. I'm sorry," the captain murmured, though he doubted very much the withdrawal had been Ianto's conscious decision. The jumble of surreal images felt slick in his own mind, layered with subtext he cannot understand. It's little wonder; they don't belong to him and, unlike Jack's borrowed impressions of Toshiko and the tide, they came entirely without context. Death thoughts, Jack realized as his mouth suddenly went dry. He was painfully aware of each death his own immortal body experienced, but there was also always that little jump between Life and Void, a handful of seconds mercifully wiped from his mind. 

"Please don't think about that," Jack held his lover firmly, embracing the slim shoulders and folding his hands behind the pale neck. "It's over and done with, I promise. I shouldn't have pushed you. I was just surprised I could read from you at all. But then, you're always full of surprises." 

 

_(Isn't he just? Innocence and guile. That honest little hitch of breath when Jack strokes his neck, the steaming coffee and blank face that kept deadly secrets. The archives are flawless, organized by a mind that recognizes patterns and effortlessly takes them to their natural conclusion. Yet there is also that naughty glance, the irreverent challenge._

_"Ah, that's right, their heads must explode all the time." Absolutely unrepentant, the blue-eyed boy gripping the arms of the chair and barely hiding his chuckles beneath fake spasms._

_Or oddly compassionate, offering solace when the captain himself is so adrift he scarcely recognizes the invitation. Presence and distance, knowing touch and plain physical pleasure._

_"That's the thing about gloves, sir." There is an uncanny wisdom written in his raised eyebrow. "They come in pairs." Always crisp and professional, he's happy to schedule the psi test that he somehow missed at Torchwood One; but wouldn't you know it, a crisis pops up, the world's ending--_

_"The world's always ending."_

_\-- and it somehow slips by._

_Ianto glances away, Ianto ducks his head, Ianto gives little smiles that may or may not mean what Jack reads into them. Ianto has beautiful hands, which accidentally brush against his new boss during coffee rounds. There's not a wrinkle in that suit or a shift in that expression to give the game away. Those same hands grasp Jack's wrists, guide them to the headboard, where he asks his leader to hold on tight._

_"You're going to tie me to the bed during sex?" Jack's leer is playful, challenging. Waiting for a ripple in the polished veneer._

_"Don't have to," Ianto replies with careless confidence. He trails fingers down Jack's arms, caressing muscles and humming somewhere back in his throat._

_Jack pushes the envelope. "How else are you going to make me behave myself? What's gonna keep my hands from going after your admittedly luscious Welsh arse?"_

_"Your pride, sir." Oh, that quirk of the lip says more than any wide smile. He produces the stopwatch with a magician's ease, thumb on the button with loving anticipation. "Keep those hands on the rail. Let's see how long you can hold out." Ianto angles his kisses, down and down. "The clock is ticking, Captain." )_

 

Jack groaned, the noise itself wrenched from his insides. The stir of his libido felt at once always-familiar and strange. His despair had dampened it, but now it flexed again, gold-shot crimson that twined in and around his hips, pulling taut. The cut on his wrist felt starved for touch, and his mind conjured easy images of reopening the wound. He thought of the warm of Ianto's mouth, the needy sucking, the sense of being devoured inch by delightful inch. Ianto stirred ever-so-slightly in his arms, making a tiny sleep-soaked sound of distress. Like the faint brush of moth wings, there was a stir in their connection, but it was eventually lost in the thick _nothing_ that held them separate.

"Ignore me," Harkness whispered soothingly, even as he gripped the mug so harshly his knuckles ached. "Weren't you always telling me I'm a dirty old man?" 

 

 

Resettling Ianto back against the pillows, Jack slipped out of bed and carried the mug towards the kitchen. Arms braced on the sink, he took deep lungfuls of air and expelled them with measured calm. He washed and rinsed the mug and the eyedropper, setting them out to dry and very deliberately not scratching at his wrist. The faucet loosed a stream of cool water, a thin rush that appeared almost bronze or ochre in the dim lighting. Rolling back his cuff, Jack was relieved to find that the cold water helped a little. He bathed his wrist in it gingerly, sinking his teeth into his lower lip. Willing the sensations to be small, and then pushing them away. 

_("Just as he will hunger to take, you will hunger to give.")_

"That's putting it mildly," he muttered. Behind him, the refrigerator kicked up a weak, protesting cycle of cooling. Jack forced himself to feel the space of the apartment-- the floors he'd scrubbed himself, the walls painted a now barely-perceptible blue. This space was safe; he'd unconsciously made it so with his labor, putting his mark on it even as he made it ready for Ianto. The walls and clattering pipes, however, were precious little psychic protection. There was an entire building past these tiny boundaries; then the complex itself, the length of Hua She Street, the warehouse district and the whole of Macao. The captain felt chilled somehow, naked in a way that shocked even the jaded 51st Century agent living in 21st Century skin. 

 

_("They ate of the fruit, and then they saw that they were naked."_

_Faith again, the very first time. Squatting next to him in the dank, hay-strewn alley, counting the turn of the centuries that would bring him to his 'certain kind of Doctor'. The fourteenth tarot card was called Temperance, but in Faith's deck it was labeled 'The Angel of Time'. The brisk, delicate lines of ink portrayed a young woman, golden locks dripping over her nude form. She stood, at once brazen and abashed, holding a pomegranate in her right hand. Oh, that relentless fruit, doggedly pursuing mankind down the corridors of the ages! In her left hand, she held a tipped jar, flowing freely with the waters of life. Deep brown eyes gazed out from the illustration, too young to die or be exposed to any of these things._

_"This card represents the union between conscious and unconscious will," Faith had said, just a hint of a childish lisp around the words. "Life and death, change and the unchanging. A marriage of opposites." Delicately, she'd brushed at a particular bit of dirt on her already muddy skirt, looking up at him through her lashes. "Just as Eve wed godly knowledge to human mortality when she took the fruit."_

_He'd felt amusement, all those years ago, a bit drunk as he reflected on the continued puritanical influences in the current, barely-civilized century. A bit annoyed, too, if one was honest, and he told her so. "Kid, anyone can cobble together vague, pretty words and make them sound like prophecy."_

_Unperturbed, she gathered her cards with leisurely care. "Come see me in a few decades, Captain. You'll see.")_

 

 

_Naked._ The word echoed in Jack's skull, gaining a texture of unfamiliar shame. Unshielded. Defenseless. 

_'I couldn't go out like this,' he thought, flinching inwardly. 'A city like this, I'd be crazy to. One angry worker, one high school girl having a bad day, and it would feel like someone was rubbing bits of glass into a raw wound.'_ He was not, strictly speaking, even considered particularly gifted for his time. On a scale of one to thirteen, he'd tested firmly in the seventh tier, balanced on that perfect precipice of talent and everyday application. Someone who could block against other telepathic species, with enough empathy to sense the general mood of a crowd and form a hunch, but not so wildly sensitive that it could not be controlled. It was a fine line to walk, especially considering the fact humanity had only begun producing significant telepathic populations around the 47th Century. The increase had been considered a natural part of evolution-- from perhaps one skilled birth of fifty in the 20th century, to four in ten. And there was the boy called Jamie, talent hopelessly battered in the refugee ward, finally graduating as an agent.

_'The only Seven to ever last three hours during Final Trial.'_ Jack could acknowledge that there was still a trace of pride highlighting that thought. Difficult to conceal, even after all this time. Couldn't he still picture the sour look on John's face, that narrow envy in the other man's eyes even as they gathered with their year-mates in the student lounge to drink and fuck and celebrate the victory?

 

_'And look at you now, you decadent sod,'_ his own internal voice adopted Hart's tones of disgust. ' _You're vulnerable, even in this practically psi-null century. You couldn't walk down the street in this state! Savage.'_

"I've got time," the captain whispered fiercely. "I know how to build shields, and I can do it again. Put them back the way they were, only this time..." He smiled, triumphant and just a touch hysterical. "This time, I'll build them with Ianto." Decisively, he flicked off the tiny stove light and stalked back towards the bedroom, leaving his doubts to fester on the dark kitchen tile.

 

 

Trembling a little with the enormity of the past few days, Jack quickly reset the alarm on his mobile and stumbled towards the bed. The patter of raindrops had slowed, leaving the night to swell with its contradictions of sunless cool and steam. He shucked his shirt and pants with more than a little relief and-- clad only in t-shirt and boxers-- eschewed the rocking chair in favor of his traditional side of the bed. Ianto lay just as Jack had delicately arranged him, every muscle relaxed in the depth of his strange dreams. With the comforter chastely between them, Jack curled against the younger man's side and slung an arm across the slim waist. There was comfort here, in the rhythm of Ianto and his dark, internal quay. 

Closing his eyes, Jack drifted into the shallow, hyperaware fog that always came with late nights and too much caffeine. Little bits and pieces surfaced in his mind, seemingly random, sinking as quickly as they were observed. Ianto, inhaling the scent of coffee with a connoisseur's pleased smile. Some unseen hand, authoring Faith's tarot cards, dripping quill in ink. Paperwork on his old desk in the Hub. Rose, painfully young, whooping and hollering as she rode her red bicycle around the estate while Jack watched from the shadows. Owen flicking nuts at Suzie from across the pub. Steven, maybe five, wearing one of Jack's old shirts as he experimented with finger-paints. The meaningless and the profound, the extraordinary and the mundane; they flickered disjointedly, like a handful of oddly colored stones.

 

_('A heap of broken images.'_

_That's an old one, that's Papa, who read to him from honest-to-G-d bound books. The real thing, with leather covers and paper marked in ink. A young boy, sitting beside that strong presence, smelling the ocean breeze and ancient print._

_And that's what he thinks of, when the rescue ship takes him and Mother far away from Boeshane. The planet-city of Alshain is almost unbearable, all these bits and pieces of foreign feeling coming at him from unexpected angles. The doctors give him drugs for it, pills that make him feel heavy and stuffed with static noise. He's fifteen when he attends his first class in the crèche, and so embarrassed he feels like he's going to sick the shame up on his own shoes. Here he is, more than a head taller than any of the other children in the study garden. They sit on the pavilion, their cushions arranged in a circle as their teacher paces back and forth. The instructor is a beautiful young Rigellian, hooked beak gleaming in the dappled sunlight, green feathers shifting unconsciously as he speaks._

_"It is of the utmost importance that you learn to erect shields." His golden eyes hold briefly with each student in turn, but the-boy-who-had-been-Jamie is slouched in his seat, desperately afraid that someone from his own class will spot him from the walkway. He cannot seem to make his wretchedness small enough to fit inside himself. The teacher makes a little trilling noise-- an adult's polite laughter-- speaking to the churning emotions of all children present. "I will train you not to leak your feelings about, just as you were once trained to use the appropriate facilities."_

_There's a backwash of humiliation from the entire class, many of whom are only a few grades above nursery school. For Jamie, this is almost-- just almost-- worse than the way he wants to cry for his parents at night, tears always overwhelmed by his pride and fear of being caught. He forces himself to raise his head and gaze attentively towards the instructor._

_"Being able to shield is one of the first steps towards becoming a responsible sentient being. Truly civilized creatures respect one another's mental integrity. They do not indulge in base mental connections." One feathered hand is poking upwards in the air, emphasizing each word. "Such activities may seem minor to you now, but they all ultimately lead to a destruction of Self. This is not something any member of the Galactic Alliance would allow."_

_A vague, fearful murmur of 'yes, sir' rolls through the assembled students, and Jamie's voice is among them._

_But once, long ago...)_

 

There was something important here, some lynchpin trapped like a fossil in amber. Jack felt it even in the depths of his weariness, a drowsy epiphany he didn't quite have the will

_(are you afraid?)_

to chase down. Perhaps it wasn't that important, just one of those wispy thoughts that only seems clever when seen through the kaleidoscope of sleep. Boeshane was gone, there was no one here who answered to the name Jamie, or that other, exotic collection of syllables he had been born under. Let the past be the past, let sleeping dogs lie, let dust settle over the uncomfortable archives of the mind. Just a heap of images, nothing to see here.

 

_('A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, ___

___And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief...'* _____

_____That's Papa's thick finger tracing the text, pointing deliberately to each word. The boy is content to watch, too young to truly grasp the emotion or artistry in the words. He's just glad to be sitting with Papa in the fading copper sunset. Calmly, without shame, he runs his own tiny fingers along the leather edges of the book's binding and listens to _____ _ _

_______listens to _____ _ _ _ _

_________\--papa's lips aren't moving-- _____ _ _ _ _ _ _

___________listens to _____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_____________\--papa is not reading aloud-- _____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_______________the comforting, far-off thunder rumble of his father's mental voice.)__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary/Notes:  
> [+] **Temperance** \- 14th card in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck. It is actually labeled 'The Angel of Time' in some medieval decks. As Faith says, it represents the fusion of opposites, and deep change. Reversed, the meaning becomes disenchantment with the world and inability to accept change. Usually depicted as a woman holding a jar (or two), thought to represent the waters of life for physical soil and the waters of the soul for spiritual nourishment.   
> ... and I think I like Faith's tarot deck a bit too much for my own good. ^_~  
> [+] _This Island Earth_ (1955) Starring Jeff Morrow, Faith Domergue, and Rex Reason. This film was actually used by _Mystery Science Theater 3000_ for their theatrical debut. But, long before that, I remember the slave aliens giving my little brother nightmares. ^^   
>  [+] **Alshain** \- (beta aquillae) a pale orange/yellow star 42 lightyears away.   
> [+] _'A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,_  
>  And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief...'  
> Line 22, The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot.


	14. ChapterThirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last of the 'classic' stuff. *rolls eyes at self* I hope to post a new chapter next Thursday, the capricious demons of RL permitting. ^_~

The rain itself had passed, but the storm clouds lingered dolefully over the whole of the city. Each one still held a darker gradient of gray, they seemed to hint that they _could_ let loose another downpour-- if the urge struck them-- but they certainly weren't going to help diffuse the heat. Dawn came, trying for pink and blushing the sky briefly, before it settled back into a silvery patina, like the blind eye of a typhoon. Jack left the windows in the apartment open as long as he could bear it, finding the humid, faintly metallic smell of the city far preferable to the ghosts of lemon and myrrh from Lan Wei's ritual. 

 

The morning did the Captain no favors. In spite of the growing light, he felt trapped, as if the night before had lengthened impossibly. Crouching atop the whole of the complex, refusing to be banished. He looked at the wan beams of illumination on the floor, blinking harshly. For a moment, every color seemed waxy and wrong, before his stomach cramped painfully. He located the cold, leftover noodles in the refrigerator, supplying his body with them distractedly. The noodles themselves felt slimy; they stuck to the chopsticks and his tongue. He ate standing at the kitchen counter, watching the mist recede through the streets. The buildings in this district were packed together tightly, not even offering the pretense of geometry. Alleys and side streets met each other at arcane angles; paths with no exit jutted abruptly, like knife wounds. The eighth floor's vantage point offered just a few tantalizing puzzle-glimpses-- a scrap of bay here, a derelict warehouse there, the odd slope of concrete steps. It had all the innate sense of an Escher drawing, the funhouse mirror reflecting throughout itself, and yet the very chaos seemed deliberate as well. 

_'Ley lines and traffic lights,'_ Harkness thought with dim amusement. _'Neon markers of the gods.'_ Somewhere, a truck's horn gave an indignant wail, and the buzz of thoroughfare drivers increased as morning rush hour crept nigh. Conscientiously, Jack washed his chopsticks, disposing of the empty styrofoam container in the rubbish bin. That was the last of the food he had in the apartment, but the thought of leaving Ianto in search of more hardly seemed worth contemplating. Lan Wei had insisted he would sleep-- and she, of anyone, would know-- but a part of Jack railed against her careful instructions, desperate to keep watch. 

 

That's what this was, sentry duty. He barely trusted his own senses, muddled with exhaustion and grief, let alone the capriciousness of his good fortune. Jack's psyche had brushed lovingly against Ianto's sleeping consciousness; he'd spent several hours resting with his arm thrown over the Welshman's hips, feeling the shallow motions of breath and pulse. Yet it simply wasn't _enough_. Everything seemed so thin, as if events could easily fold back on themselves in the ultimate Mobius strip. If he woke in that gymnasium again, if he had to find Ianto's limp form under that thin red sheet, he was sure he would scream and scream and never stop screaming. They could put him in the room next to Jonah, and the two of them could cry out endlessly together for the very same reason. Gwen, and even Jonah's mother, had assumed that the boy had been driven insane by the things he'd seen. That was the easy explanation, the one that allowed you sleep at night. 

The other, deeper diagnosis, was simply that the teen had seen the black, bare universe in its entirety. Horror upon horror; plain fact with no escape. He was, simply put, _too sane_.

 

Numb relief and expectation were holding the immortal together now. Unwanted memories like pins put through bone. In truth, Jack had barely thought past this point. Once the plan had risen-- seemingly whole and unblemished-- from the depths of his mind, he'd been primarily concerned with logistics. Getting out of England; getting Ianto into Macao. Bartering with Wei, and covering his tracks well enough that Gwen, Martha, or even UNIT would not find a ready scent. The Doctor could not be guarded against half so easily, but Jack had formed plans to remedy that, too. 

_Find Ianto. Find him._ He'd let that though drive him, pull at him mercilessly. It was overwhelming, and far better than actually examining his grief. Now, Jack stood in the kitchen doorway, looking out towards the wide living space. Even the flat, gray light of morning revealed the living color in Ianto's face. He thought of the old broadcasts-- 'the new luxury of color TV and the carnival glass luster of pigmented film. Hardly impressive to a boy who'd grown up with tri-feed holograms, but the phrase stuck with him. _Brought to you in living color._

 

Rummaging in the cupboard, he located a few packets of green tea that had come with his dinner. He needed caffeine, and he wasn't going to fool himself that he could even contemplate coffee right now. Instead, he heated his mug in the microwave, letting the tea bags soak. The sharpness of temperature and taste were welcome, and he sat staring into the swirling dark of the cup for a very long time.

 

 

Hua She Street Number 10 came to a shuddering, resentful waking. Jack heard the clang of the front gate at quarter to five and, shortly after that, the wheeze of the few cars kept in the complex park. Most of the remaining occupants lived within walking distance of work-- they labored in the warehouse district, or crossed the thoroughfare to bend their backs in piecework factories. Every now and again, a particularly loud piece of conversation floated through the boney structure. Jack blocked them out, unable to rouse enough interest in getting a sense for his chosen locale. The Agency's long-ingrained training was simply no match for the enveloping sense of disorientation. Something was off, something was shifting imperceptibly out of sync, even as the balance of Jack's personal world evened out. It wasn't Time-- if it was, Jack would have been fighting more than the minor psychic pain of being without shields. He didn't have the senses of a Timelord by any stretch of the imagination, but repeated exposure to the mechanics of nonlinear temporal context had given him something of an edge. A feel for Volcano Day, though-- and here he winced-- he was just as capable of ignoring or belittling those hunches as anyone else. 

 

Backwash from the ritual, Jack decided. The corners of the apartment felt as though they needed a bleaching and scrubbing, though the filth wasn't physical. The smell, at least, had dissipated. The day's heat pulsed higher, blanketing the whole of the port-- already even the memory of cool rain seemed gone, and the early hour felt just as abysmally sweltering as noon had the day before. The Captain closed the windows against it, first the kitchen, then the wide, glazed pane that overlooked the courtyard. Tenants crossed the uneven cobble below, most of them dressed in coveralls or garish food service uniforms. There were a few students-- all of them high school age-- weaving sleepily as they hurried towards an early-morning cram session. One woman, smooth ebony hair curved in an almost architectural french twist, made her way towards the gate with a palpable air of disdain. While the others offered each other distracted calls of ' _jou sahn_ ', she spoke to no one, hips moving in a practiced sway under her pencil skirt. All of these people, without exception, took a curved path through the courtyard, as if guided by invisible rails. For a moment, Jack's skin prickled unpleasantly, and he was reminded of pedestrians on the Plass, blindly avoiding the Invisible Lift. That seen-but-unseen quality of the perception filter, tapping into instinct. 

 

They were avoiding the tree. That gnarled, anorexic trunk that stretched out of the open soil, fragile branches devoid of leaf or bloom. It had to be dead, possessed of no more sap or life than a piece of driftwood. Jack wondered that the pale carcass had yet to be torn down, though he supposed Mr. Yu wouldn't bother with the extra work in light of the upcoming demolition. It looked even more unpleasant than it had when the Captain first crossed into Number Ten. Nothing else grew in the shadow of the three buildings-- not a bush, flower, or tuft of grass. With typical sixties' efficiency, everything else had been paved. He strongly suspected the cobblestone had lingered with the housing project only because it was too expensive to dig up. Willing himself to look away, Harkness instead gazed at the two buildings that flanked his own. Save for sickly Ms. Chen, the entire eight story hulk was Jack's alone. The other two buildings, while sparsely populated, still held enough people to give the complex a sense of lethargic awareness. That shaky vitality of the elderly who feel death but stare at it, hateful and half-blind. A young mother in a worn fuchsia robe stood on one of the neighboring walkways, rocking and shushing the fussy infant in her arms. As the Captain watched, a heavily pregnant cat came into view, tangling between her legs, pawing at her slippers. She gently nudged it away with one foot, a look of mingled fear and distaste flickering across her features. The cat itself was black with white markings, the pale splotches so large they looked almost comical. In the West, black cats were unlucky; here, white was the color of death and disaster. 

Bad omens and coincidence-- _of course_ no one takes those things seriously _these days_. But you crossed your fingers all the same. 

 

Black and white-- you're double damned, my friend, Jack thought at the retreating feline. The baby began to fuss more loudly, ignoring his mother's attempts to soothe. An image

_(little steven when alice finally allowed Jack to hold him? melissa herself, wrapped in a pastel hospital blanket? or grey, too wide-eyed, face red and pinched while Ahmah showed Jamie how to hold him right?)_

rose, felled just as swiftly as it came by Jack's vehement denial. He shook his head, as if to physically banish it. Somewhere, someone's forgotten laundry slapped wetly against a wall. Behind him, his mobile chirped, marking the next set of hours. A warm rush flooded through Jack, pangs of desire and hope that pooled in the cut on his wrist. 

 

He closed the window firmly on the world.

 

 

 

Now with three more feedings under his belt, Jack felt he had begun to get a handle on the _rhythm_ of his connection to Ianto, if not the actual bond itself. Each time, he cradled the young man against his own body, massaging the Welshman's throat and watching with relief as more and more of the red liquid disappeared. When the swallows slowed and Ianto's breathing evened, he knew the session was over, but he did not actually need those physical signals. It was there at the base of his skull, a sensation much like Ianto's hands slipping away from his neck after a particularly ardent kiss. A pleasurable feeling, like a caress, but not one he looked forward to. Like a sailor trapped on land, he gazed longingly towards the deep indigo waters of his lover's mind, praying for the right sort of tide. He could _feel_ Ianto, but he couldn't communicate-- trying produced powerful agony in his own mind and, just once, a little mewl of distress from his sleeping companion. It was this, more than anything, that made Jack stop chasing the ripples of association and phantom colors that came to him when Ianto fed. Instead, he tried to relax, let them wash over him, stronger each time but still somehow hopelessly ephemeral. That tide, Ianto's quay, knew and embraced him without conscious effort. Some form of psychic instinct, the Captain was sure, for the patient lapping of waves brought him strange, glimmering shards of memory like eon-polished shell. Not all of them-- (none of them?)-- were things Jack thought Ianto would want him to see.

 

_(Sitting in the Hub's tiny kitchen with Tosh. A late night project-- some rift-recalibration Ianto is assisting her with because it's better than going home and thinking. 'Blast thought,' is what he says to her, and it earns him a tired smile. The past few months have been rough on all of them, but Toshiko in particular seems to feel personally responsible for foreseeing every possible contingency. The new program is actually a flop-- it hasn't been long enough for them to have completely given up on the Captain's detection or return, though neither of them wants to admit how slender their capacity for belief has become. Instead, they go back to her flat, drink and play Dirty Scrabble while sitting on her vintage throw rug. They cheat by mutual consent, mixing languages; '_ zakennayo _' crossed with_ 'damn', 'pidyn' _sticking asymmetrically out of_ 'shit'. _They laugh themselves sick with the deliberate vulgarity. He falls asleep on Tosh's sofa, and wakes up with a hangover that feels something like relief._

_\--or-_

_Months later; days and weeks pulling at the skin. Ianto watches as each of his teammates face the lengthening gulf in turn. The Captain is gone, and the only thing their search has managed to yield is more and more evidence that Jack left voluntarily. They make plans, they work around it, half out of spite. Gwen is nominally in charge-- she thinks she's the last one holding on to hope, and Ianto does not disabuse her of that notion. What he has cannot be called by that name. He wants and believes in spite of his own nature, constantly berating himself for it. He works hard, he never cracks, but he wakes at odd hours during the night, disoriented and confused. The blank ceiling sets him adrift and time seems malleable. Once, he wakes thinking he'd better go into Torchwood One early and finish that report, or the Lead Archivist will have his head. Or_ that _dream, almost a year old now, curls up with him-- he thinks he hears Lisa begging for meds._

_On these nights, Ianto takes a warm shower no matter what time it really is, barely bothering with the lights. Sometimes, he takes himself in hand, looking for a distraction. That never really works, but he's a young healthy male. It's the visualization that trips him up; heart and cock pulse, two traitorous organs, until he focuses solely on the memory of touch and skin. No moments to relive, just the feel of a strong jaw, bruising grip on his own shoulders, Jack's eyes while he watches. This is what Ianto needs to take out of context. He does not want connotations, emotive echoes, or particulars._

_It's funny, because what he wants is Jack, outside of Time._

_\---further back---_

_Very young now, snugly tucked in with Mam's old quilt. His shoulder hurts, red pressure, but not half so much as his ears ring from Da shouting at him. Ianto shivers in his warm flannel pajamas-- Da is_ still _shouting, both of them are. Mam's voice has that tight control to it, she's trying to be quiet, but the acoustics of the house bring everything through quite plainly._

_"Don't you ever touch my son like that again, do you hear me?"_

_Da, louder, booming, "Did you not see the mess he made of my papers? Thoughtless brat."_

_"That's what a time-out is for, you great oaf!" Mam's voice quavers with emotion. "You're not to raise a hand to my boy like that! Are we clear?"_

_"Are you threatening me?" Ianto can't see it, but he knows Da is crowding her. Mam is small, and Da likes to corner her-- loom in her space._

_"I'll handle the discipline from now on." Quiet, almost feline rage; then suddenly she pauses and takes a deep breath. Mam's voice acquires a tone of perfect, polite reason, as if she's at a garden party. "You have to sleep sometime, Vaughn."_

_\--or--_

_Older. London, say 'thank you, G-d', and he's making a home of his own. That first flat with Lisa, trying to arrange everything perfectly, anticipate how she would like things. He's in jeans and a t-shirt, wrestling with the kitchen cupboard the landlord claimed would be easy to fix. Unpacked boxes crowd around him, reminding him of how much more there is to do._

_"Just leave it, love," Lisa says from the doorway. She sounds at once amused and exasperated. "We can finish unpacking tomorrow."_

_Ianto squints in at the rusted hinge, not raising his head. "I just want to get this sorted."_

_"You can't organize the whole universe." Closer now-- her shadow crosses over him._

_"Don't want to organize the whole universe," he tells her absently. "Just my little corner of it."_

_A flutter of something. Gingerly, Ianto straightens and looks down in his lap. Her underwear-- the fancy, lacy scrap of silk she wears when she has a particular plan._

_"So tell me, O Archivist-- do you have a special filing system for that?" Lisa chuckles richly and takes off for the bedroom. Ianto turns around just in time to catch sight of her retreat, completely bare but for her self-confidence._

_Rocking back on his heels, Ianto stands quickly, biting his lip against the wide smile that wants to take hold._

_He goes to her.)_

 

Jack accepted these things as they came to him; he guarded them because they were part of Ianto, no matter how much they might sting. He was equally careful not to probe any more deeply, mentally keeping his hands clasped behind his back as if he were even now standing in Ianto's beloved Archives.

_'See?'_ he remembered saying once, watching Ianto file a newly recovered artifact. ' _I'm on my best behavior.'_ Here was a bin for 'Unknown, But Not Obviously Dangerous', here one for 'Individual Storage, Extremely Volatile', and then rows of alphabetical categorization for things they could actually identify. He'd folded his hands behind his back, winking.

Ianto had rolled his eyes. ' _That, I'll believe when I see it.'_

 

"I'm not doing it on purpose, you must know that," he told his sleeping lover presently. Gently, he thumbed away a stray drop of blood, settling Ianto back against the pillows. He took the mug away for another cleansing, but left the small glass of water he'd taken to keeping on the nightstand. Though the young man was not feeding from him directly, the Captain still found himself strangely thirsty during these sessions. Ianto's steady swallows inspired phantom tugs on his wrist, little bits of sympathetic magic. Already, his mouth was dry again, and he'd balled his free hand into a fist to keep from scratching at his wound. Too much, dancing on that line between pleasure and pain; cut from within and without. Jack pictured Ianto's polite, attentive expression during briefings. The Captain always knew Ianto was listening, but there was that odd tilt of his head, those solemn blue eyes, and sometimes he wasn't sure just what the young man was listening to. 

What you said, as opposed to what you meant. 

These little shards of memory offered insight, yes, but they could not _explain_. If anything, Ianto seemed more difficult to divine without the few assumptions Jack had held. A being cast of a single precious stone, his boy, no seam or groove to get inside.

 

 

Closing the windows had necessitated use of the apartment's boxy, lurching AC unit. Outdated but serviceable, it cast a low insect-buzz throughout the flat, adding to Jack's growing unease. The numb exhaustion of the early morning had given way to the certainty that he _must_ rebuild his shields-- cautiously, to avoid causing Ianto pain-- and begin thinking ahead. The weight of it seemed to settle on his already tense shoulders, refusing to budge. To that end, Jack had smoothly dismantled his wrist-strap, motions so familiar they required no conscious thought. He examined each piece, assessing the Doctor's damage, frowning over the blackened field for the fluctuating base teleportation coordinates. At one point, Jack had to shove himself away from the workbench in disgust, all too able to picture how he'd allowed the Time Lord to wield his sonic screwdriver. Time Agents were taught that the wrist-strap came off only when the body itself was cold and dead.

 

Jack paced. He organized the components according to what was salvageable. He lingered over Ianto's feedings, like a traveler resting in the welcome shade, and he liberally applied cold water to his wrist when necessary. He made a mental list of anything that could be of use from his steamer trunk, loathe to actually disturb that particular boneyard.

 

In this way, he passed the first day.

 

 

Barefoot, Jack settled himself cross-legged on the floor. His dress shirt clung to his skin-- the predawn heat was already potent, almost viscous, but the material still served to shield the hungry cut on his wrist. It had been centuries, from any perspective, since Jack had needed to do this, but time felt just as fickle as the warmth of the growing day. Resting his elbows on his knees, Jack pressed the thumb and forefinger of each hand against the opposite palm. Nearby, the AC hummed laboriously, running against the high temperatures with uneven success.

_(Breathe in, then out.)_

 

He aligned his spine, gaze moving reflexively towards Ianto's still form. From this angle, it seemed as though the young man slept upon an altar. As quickly as that thought occurred, Jack superstitiously dismissed it. Altars were for sacrifices, or else for gods, the later of which were naturally just as devoid of life as they were of death. There was Ianto, in Jack's bed-- surely he would roll over any moment and fuss at the Captain for lurking about in the dark. 

_'If you're going to keep me awake anyway, popping floor boards and rummaging through my cupboards,'_ he'd say, _'then I think I can come up with something to keep you occupied.'_ Those vowels, like rough velvet with sleep. It was the archivist's affectionate contention that there were few things in the Universe more dangerous than Jack Harkness when he was bored. 

 

Unconsciously, Jack's shoulder's slumped. Ianto's breathing was still unnaturally soft, and anyway the young man tended to rest on his side. His sleep was usually deep but watchful, knees bent, arms folded near his head, as if to ward off some sound only he could hear. Those arms would find Jack if he was near-- not clinging, but acknowledging with faint brushes, fingers occasionally resting on a thigh or hip. For a moment, the Captain fought the urge to rise, to cradle those hands again and wait. Searching that face, as if the very force of his own desire could summon Ianto into full wakefulness. His heart clutched, his wrist throbbed, and it felt as though bright, burning shards of iron had become lodged in his skull. Jack forced himself to stay still.

_(Close your eyes.)_

 

He did, and the years fell away before him. Oh, the traitorous perceptions of the mind! The sound of his respiration swelled; there was the hard floor beneath him, and the blistering sensation of his Esper points pressed together. The two 'divining' fingers of each hand pressed against the Mound of Venus, meant to balance the body and the mind. He could almost be in the Morning Pavilion, first year of training at the Agency. 

 

_("It is no longer enough to simply maintain your psychic 'self' amidst day to day interactions." This is not the feathered Rigelian from the Creche speaking, not now. It's the Esper Defense Professor, all sibilant vowels and fleshed violet skin. "As an Agent, you must be able to bolster your mental integrity against attack.")_

 

Jack felt it now, the utter vulnerability of his mind, like flesh suddenly exposed under armor. Shame, old and internalized, twined with the awe of sensing Ianto so near. Like a caress under the skin, that same lunar pull that always made him so readily aware of the younger man's presence.

_'Take a step back,'_ he advised himself, groping for calm. _'Regroup.'_ He imagined blocks of stone, thick vines, seamless stretches of heat-scored metal-- all the earliest visualization tools for building shields.

 

_("Humans, and variants on the species, are particularly dependent on imagery." The Professor walks between the rows, sharp hooves oddly quiet on the deck. "Picture it. Will it."_

_This is a cue. The class murmurs the correct catechism in response, eyes closed. The observation panel runs the length of the room-- the students sit on their simulated reed mats, awash in the twisting, yellow-white light of Proxima Centauri. There's Jamie and Etan, John and Kri, Cal and Jess, with Boyce and Dan'el nervously poised in back. Each student tries to focus, but they are all afraid. The Professor corrects their form and posture with flicks of his stinger appendage against the back of their necks-- another vulnerable psychic spot. Worse still, the Polaran ranks worlds beyond human psi measurement. He attacks at random, wielding vivid impressions of hot needles, the cold press of a sealed tomb, ceaseless vertigo, or maggots writing on the tongue. Already this semester, he has reduced Etan and Jess to tears._

_The students do not support or comfort each other; in fact, they never speak of this class, no matter how freely drink or drug flows. Someone-- Jamie thinks its Boyce-- breaks position and vomits, cursing low in their native tongue. He keeps his focus on his own shields, which he has erected as smooth iridium with sharp bulwarks, like the Citadels of Boeshane. No one can afford to think outside themselves. This only purgatory-- three more years of it, and counting._

_Hell will be Final Trial.)_

 

"All energy is Will," Jack murmured to himself. "Will is rooted in my mind, and my mind is the barricade." The central aphorism of Defense class was as fresh as if he'd spoken it yesterday. These things-- memories, old lessons, grudges yet unformed-- have dogged him down through the twisting avenues of Time, hungry ghosts demanding their fair share. 

_(Focus.)_

Aloud, but barely more than a whisper, "Will you give me no peace?"

 

 

_(Breathe. Your mind is the barricade.)_

 

TSAZHAO, writ large across his mental landscape, more startling and all-pervasive even than _Blaidd Drwg_. It was an old word, one he'd carried with him like precious contraband, and it belonged to the young man sleeping nearby. And there it was, the red-gold cord stronger than Jack's pride. 

' _I pulled you back with this,_ ' the Captain thought, the silk-steel texture almost tangible in his hands. 

 

_('Red is the color of your honest feelings.'_

_That's Papa, a face Jack knows but cannot bear to remember when awake. Sunset in Boeshane, and Mother is sitting back against the curved lounge. Ahmah's head is in her lap, inky black locks spilling everywhere._

_'And what, then, is the gold?' Mother asks, and the fading light turns her short hair just that color. The women smile indulgently at each other-- they know the answer, but they like to draw their husband out._

_'Ah,' says Papa, winking at Jack. 'This is the color of your better self, drawn out by your partners.')_

 

_'I can build with this,'_ Jack thought, affectionate and profoundly raw. _'Ianto, I've broken all the rules, but what does it matter? It's all gone to hell anyway. I know my histories, and this wasn't supposed to happen.'_

_(Alex, bloody and slumped with defeat on New Year's Eve._

_'We made a mistake, Jack.')_

Jack laid the foundation with careful visualization-- strong Welsh rock, gun casing from his Webley, the scorched shell of a brass stopwatch. Distantly, Harkness heard the faintest of movements from Ianto, as if the other man's soul had somehow shuddered in relief. 

' _Better, better. Fill in the gaps, now._ '

For mortar, his own blood and sinew, for hadn't he proven he had plenty to spare? He remembered the perplexity on Johnson's face, when she said he'd started screaming before he'd actually had all the proper organs to do so. Endless loops of agonized entreaty and gallons of blood. Not all of it was his. 

 

_('Do you even understand what its like to feel guilt?'_

_That's Lucia, fierce dark eyes and perpetually unhappy mouth. She's loaded down with overnight packs and the diaper bag, tugging Melissa along by the strap on her romper. This is the first time-- but oh, not the last!-- she'll run from Torchwood and the aura of Death. His deaths, so peculiar and plural, which she treats like some sort of infectious disease, refusing to let him touch her. It's on the tip of his tongue to point out she didn't have these objections when she came to his bed, but his adopted chivalry prevents him. It's all some bizarre, cautionary fairytale-- he looks at Melissa's solemn eyes and knows it never occurred to either of her parents that this was a remote possibility._

_'Would you be sorry?' Lucia demands. He's never thought about it before but, in his memory, she looks a lot like Gwen. 'And then they died,' her voice is dripping vitriol now. The baby stares at Jack, thumb solidly in her mouth. 'We'd just be a footnote in your life. Hardly worth mentioning. Oh well!")_

 

 

**_"SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU!"_**

 

Jack kept his eyes closed, though he knew he'd shouted aloud in tandem with the desperate psychic broadcast. All of this, he'd buried-- Boeshane, Grey, the Agency; Lucia, thoughtful Alex and trigger-happy Emily. Even his parents, the happy days before a shadow fell over their courtyard, snuffing them out one by one. He'd torn it down, sewn it over, for the simplest of reasons; to save his own mind. He could not be Jamie, son or brother, Daddy or even Uncle Jack-- not if he expected to stay sane. Their names were carved on his insides; he sometimes thought he was their living, breathing memorial. It fucking _hurt_ , until there was nothing but acid in his gut. If he needed-- if he _wanted_ \-- to wall it away, that was his right. 

 

When he confided in Ianto, it was small things-- broken, blunt-edged moments. His lover kept secrets like priests kept confession. There would be understanding in that blue-gray gaze, strength offered in a touch, but never any words. Then he could get up in the morning and be Jack Harkness, who began with Alice Guppy's Victorian script and now ended with the signature on a series of documents transferring Torchwood authority to Gwen. 

_'I couldn't let you go, Ianto',_ he thought, his mental touch reminiscent of the times he'd greedily spooned behind the young man's warmth in bed. _'I've been yanking you back since before I had any real understanding of why.'_

 

Back straight, shoulders so stiff they seemed brittle, Jack felt what that admission had cost him. Not the pound of flesh Wei had so eagerly extracted, but the painful relief of a long-warped bone finally snapping back into place. 

The walls in his mind were uneven, solid but incomplete. Exhausted, the Captain pitched forward, barely catching himself on his palms. The downward motion was irresistible regardless, and so he slowly came to rest his forehead against the floor. He was covered in sweat, shaking, having bitten the corner of his mouth bloody. He felt at once deliriously free and hopelessly lost, memories and years settling like ash across his psyche. It was like that very first time on the Game Station, gasping, filled to the top with vitality but surrounded by rust and rotting flesh. 

_'Rose, Rose.'_

Was he praying? The Doctor had said she looked like a goddess, set ablaze from within by the Time Vortex. An avenging angel with no need of a sword. Sometimes, the Captain still dreamed that her voice was right next to his ear, soft, deadly.... far too loud. 

_(She says, 'I bring life.')_

 

_'Rose, I wasn't built to be alone. I'm never going to apologize for this.'_ Stumbling, he forced himself to stand, and made it to the bed to grasp Ianto's hand. The Bad Wolf existed throughout time-- he thought he could hear her screaming in between the nanoseconds. _'Little sister, sweetheart, why did you do this to me?'_

He already knew the answer, though. It was the same, insufficient handful of syllables he would offer Ianto when _he_ woke. Those damn _words._

_(Because I love you.)_

 

 

Someone sobbed; once, twice, dry but wrenching. Jack knew the sounds belonged to him, but he couldn't own them. He settled next to Ianto, unrepentant but bloated with guilt, unable to reconcile his newly rebuilt shields with the maelstrom whirling inside them. 

_Please..._

The hand he held suddenly clutched back, not weakly or tentatively, but with the force of a gut reaction. Lifting his head, Jack vaguely realized he was holding Ianto in much the same position as they'd fallen in Thames House. The young man was pulled across Jack's lap, supported tightly by the Captain's arm, opposite hands clasped. The sense of synchronicity was nauseating, but he did not have time to contemplate it. Ianto's hold tightened almost inhumanly, fingers flexing as he drew in a shocked, willful gasp of air. That was a sound Jack knew-- he had heard it as almost as frequently as his own pulse, but never outside the roaring in his own ears as he shuddered back from the Void. 

" _Ianto_ ," he whispered, elated. Panic followed close behind, and then an all-consuming blast of pleasure-pain from the cut on his wrist. The thrill was solid, edged with sexual excitement yet at the same time almost transcendent. 

 

Those blue eyes opened, dark but fully sentient. Ianto looked out from them, somehow intact, body seizing with fear and confusion. 

"Jack." Not a question, but a raspy exhale that almost buried the name. The young man blinked rapidly, struggling to keep his eyes open, but his gaze never left Jack's face. 

"Right here," the Captain assured him, vision blurring as he caressed the young man's cheek, his jaw and throat. He felt the muscles under his hands twitch with outdated adrenaline, the rapid-fire pound of blood that echoed in his own wrist. Almost desperate, Ianto tried to sit up. Jack helped him, dividing support between the pillowed headboard and his own shoulder. For a brief, infinite moment, Ianto continued to stare up at his leader as if anchoring himself against an internal chaos. Then he turned violently away, thoughtlessly pressing his face against his lover's neck. Jack pulled him closer, carding fingers through the short, dark hair. He felt lips, unconsciously pursed, touch against the pulse point in his neck. Groaning aloud, Jack rocked them together, emptied of rational thought. His mind's eye quickly presented him with options, brief and decadently visual: Ianto might bite, or suck, or both, and Jack would let him. Jack would give gladly, until the body in his arms stopped shivering from shock or remembered cold. Or else, the Captain could bare his own teeth, worrying the cut Lan Wei had made until it bled once more. He'd tilt the younger man's chin up, kiss him, press the wound to those lips like an offering. 

 

Ianto made a small, distressed sound. For a fraction of a second, his lips did close around the skin of Jack's neck, before he wrenched himself away. The young man's skin was freezing, despite the close warmth of the night and the sheets tangled about his waist. Grabbing Jack's shoulders, he looked around the room frantically, eyes darting to each unfamiliar threshold and corner. 

"Wh--" Ianto's voice failed him. Gently, Jack pried the Welshman's hands away, rubbing his own in strange, soothing patterns against his lover's bare back. 

"Shhh," he advised, kissing the half-healed wound on Ianto's cheek. Groping blindly, he felt for the nightstand. His mobile fell to the floor with an irreverent clatter, but the Captain successfully located the glass of water. He moved so Ianto could use both hands to grasp it, but those elegant palms were shaking so badly he still needed an extra hand for steadying. 

"Oh," Ianto said after drinking deeply. He seemed relieved, but a frown marred his features, as if the taste had confused him. "Jack." Giving up the glass, he pressed back into the older man's warmth, radiating bright, broken-colored images across the link. 

 

The impressions passed almost too quickly for Jack to register-- the ones he did catch were blurry, as if turpentine had been thrown against a wide and detailed oil canvas. There was fear, of course, and an inky black that made the dim apartment seem to the Welshman like an unbearably bright cage. The cold that wracked his frame came from within, something so beyond freezing that it burned.

"You're alright," Jack said, thoughtlessly using a tone that spoke of willing it to be so. "You're fine."

"It was dark." There was no wonder in that beloved voice, or even fear-- just flat, horrible knowledge. In the next breath, Ianto contradicted himself. "It wasn't dark... it was worse than dark." He looked up at the Captain searchingly. "You said you would find me, that I should stay still. So... I did."

"Yeah," Jack forcibly smothered a hysterical chuckle. 

 

_("Oh, be good for me, Ianto. My good boy. I'll come find you.")_

 

"Yeah." The impulse was in him to kiss Ianto with grateful fervor, but he managed to curb that, too. "I did say that."

Squinting against the painfully blazing shadows, Ianto worried his lower lip. He seemed torn between pressing closer and pulling away-- Jack held him and left him no room to make the choice. "No. That's not right," the archivist shook his head, "what you said was--"

 

_(Oh,_ that _comes through loud and clear._

_'Don't'. Jack says 'Don't' and his lungs are burning.)_

 

"I didn't mean it like that," Jack swallowed painfully, pressing a firm finger to Ianto's lips. There was an anger in his tone he had not intended, but he couldn't seem to keep it at bay. The young man's eyes fluttered closed for a moment, but he rallied quickly, forcing them open wide. That came through plainly, too-- the utter exhaustion, the chill echoing through them both. 

 

"Jack." Those vowels hardened with determination, never mind the state of his body. "Where are we?"

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary:  
> [+] _Jou Sahn_ \- "Good morning".  
> [+] _Zakennayo_ \- Japanese. Usually translated as 'don't fuck with me' in subtitled films. Japanese can be a difficult language to curse in; most often the words themselves are relatively harmless (in this case, 'zakennayo' comes from verb _fuzakeru_ , meaning 'to romp/joke around'). It's the level of politeness, or the extreme lack of it, that makes it rude or inappropriate.  
> [+] _Pidyn_ \- I had to ask for help on this one, but I have it from a reasonably reliable linguist friend that this is Welsh for 'penis'.  
> [+] _Poxima Centauri_ \- a flare star traveling near Alpha Centauri (the closest system to Earth). It has sudden increases in brightness, reaching the next magnitude, that last for several minutes. If the Time Agency built an outpost on the edge of that system, they'd have a pretty neat view. ^_^  
> [+] _'Mound of Venus'_ \- from palmistry. The pad of the hand between the base of the thumb and articulation of the wrist. Said to indicate emotional responses, sensation and action. The forefinger leads to the line directing purpose/will, and the middle finger connects to the lines for intent.


End file.
